2022 Thrift Store Rant & Freebie Pile Win

Let's start off on a positive note and talk about these goodies I scored in a freebie pile, shall we? Just know a good ole fashioned thrift store rant is around the bend.

I was running errands and saw a giant pile on the side of the road with a "free" sign. Considering the weekend just ended, I assumed this was yard sale remnants. One thing kicking off in my town of Tacoma is the yard sales in the north end. They are getting REALLY good and you can count on several nearly every weekend in the summer months.

The treasure hunter in me lights up when I see these types of piles, it's just in my nature to get pumped for it. I flipped around and grabbed the giant frame and an amazing wooden salad bowl. When I was about to head home I noticed another pile on the other side of the road with a giant brass light fixture, perfect for my new store. Watch this vid if you don't know what I mean.

I plan to put it in the spa lounge area of the store and already have the approval from my electrician husband that it should install just fine. I used some baking soda paste to give it a good scrub but I still think it could use a shine from an actual brass cleaner to get it back to its former glory. Bulbs will be exposed so it would be cool to put in a decorative vintage one like this one here.

The wooden bowl got a good soapy water soak and laid out to dry. I'm absolutely obsessed with the shape of it and the boho rustic style is exactly what I'm going for at the store. This will likely hold my sage bundles I have for sale or my Slate Apothecary soaps that are packaged so beautifully they'd look adorable stacked inside.

The frame pictured above is HUGE so the plan is to use it in the store to help cover some wall space since the ceilings are so tall, we've got a lot of room to play with.

After my freebie score I went to the Goodwill to find a few more things on a list for the store like a coffee canister, pen holder, frames, and as always- treasures to add to my inventory for sale. I have a video going up this week of the amazing items I found that will be for sale in the store and will update the link to that below when it goes live.

I was heading over to the homeware section and what did my eyes see but none other than the Halloween racks. Gotta admit I got really excited about even a hint of Autumn making an appearance when July literally just ended.

Everything in the vintage section seems to be hoarded and hidden all year long until they whip it out for two months in Aug/Sep/Oct. I'm sorry, but there are vintage lovers out there that would absolutely LOVE to see these things year-round.

All the weird, quirky, 1950's, retro, ruffled, lacey, over-the-top pieces are stashed away until this time of year and it breaks my heart. Plus, I'm low-key insulted they'd consider some of these things as "costumes" when I'd wear most of them any day for any reason because of a little thing known as "vintage style" a lot of folks covet especially your girl here.