My Most Recent Secondhand Scores

Even though my budget is extra tight this year thanks to a few surprise expenses from last year, I still love going secondhand shopping. I usually only come away with one or two things on any given shopping trip (if anything at all), but the main draw isn’t so much the shopping itself as it is the inspiration I get from seeing beautiful antique items grouped en masse. I also appreciate the styled displays at all of my favorite local antique stores. Sometimes just seeing a pretty mid-century pitcher arranged next to a stack of plates can inspire me to try a similar look using the retro pieces we already have in our own collection.

Long story long, I’m definitely still an avid antiquer, and have added some really special vintage items to our collection over the past year that I thought I’d share with you today. From floor décor, lighting, and art, to furniture and ceramics, there’s so much to tell you about! Keep scrolling for the scoop on my latest secondhand treasures.

The wooden exercise pin and vase that you see above now styled around our fireplace both came from Heyday in nearby Charlottesville, Virginia. I’ve always wanted one of those mod-looking pins for my collection (the minimalist silhouette is so striking, right?), and the vase was a perfect match to the colors in my beloved Bernard Cathelin print on the fireplace mantel. It’s almost like Cathelin painted the vase at the same time he did the painting—the colors are that spot-on-similar.

I recently changed up the furniture on our front porch to include a rustic metal and glass table and a pair of vintage metal patio chairs. The rocking chairs that I had out on the porch before were just too big to maneuver around when you wanted to walk the length of the porch, so they took much of the functionality away from that space. This new set is easy to walk around, and I love how the white metal pops against our red brick home. I’ve already spent lots of time out on the porch reading—far more than I ever did when we had the rocking chairs—so that must mean I did something right.

The secondhand light that you see above was actually purchased pretty soon after we moved into this house back in 2022. It came from Circa, and was a bit pricey, but I just couldn’t get it out of my head. We actually went back for it after I had seen it the week before, and, as luck would have it, the light was still there. Sometimes it’s worth splurging if you love a piece enough, and this light just spoke to me. I’m slowly working my way through the Dick Van Dyke show right now, and the Petrie’s have an almost identical light in the background of their 1960s living room, so I’m taking that as a sign that it was meant to be with us in our equally retro space.

I’ve been hyper-focused on finding bookcases to store my constantly growing book collection, and this is the latest addition to our inventory. The scalloped trim on both the top and bottom is so sweet, and the shelf itself really does hold a ton of books. I prefer a completely full look with bookcases like this, but I don’t have quite enough books to stretch the spines all the way across all three shelves now, so I did a bit of light styling with stacked books and decorative items. I’m not going to rush my book buying (I’m on a budget, after all!), but my goal is to have it completely full of vertical books by the end of the year.

As soon as I saw this vintage screen at an antique store in Staunton, Virginia, I knew it was the perfect piece to go behind my desk. I’m generally of the mind that oversized artwork is especially nice behind a desk that faces a wall because it allows you to hang the piece just a little bit behind the monitor (I’m personally not a fan of hanging office art extra high so it clears the monitor), and it also acts like a stand-in “window” so you have something expansive to gaze at during breaks from computer work. The one I picked needs some restoration because it looks like someone painted over a section on the left, so I plan to take care of that using paint I already have on hand in the next few months.

Finally, the last piece I wanted to introduce you to is this female portrait painting that I found at Greenwood Antiques & Uniques. I’ve had this vision of creating a gallery wall of all the portrait paintings I’ve collected or done myself over the years, and the secondhand painting of a woman that I bought from Greenwood Antiques was the perfect finishing touch.  I love how she looks like she’s lit up from below, and the thick gold frame also caught my eye. I just had to have her.

So, there you have it. Eight of my most recent secondhand scores. I might not be buying at the same fevered rate that I used to, but I actually prefer this new methodology of considerate, slower collecting. I ultimately appreciate the few items that I invest in more deeply, and I have been experiencing far less buyer’s remorse, too. Tell me about your own secondhand scores in the comments below.