Some of my favorite things in my cottage didn’t come from a furniture store.
Some came from Facebook Marketplace.
Some came from antique shops.
Some were handed down by family.
And more than a few came from our local transfer station.
Yes.
The dump.
When you live in a 520-square-foot cottage, you really can’t bring home everything that catches your eye.
There simply isn’t room.
I’ve learned to be pretty selective about what comes through my front door. I want things that are useful, beautiful, or meaningful.
Preferably all three.
I also don’t believe creating a beautiful home requires filling it with brand-new things.
Actually, I think my favorite secondhand home decor pieces are the ones that give this little cottage its personality.
They have dents.
Scratches.
History.
And stories.
Here are a few of my favorites.
Simple White Dishes From the Transfer Station
I have a thing for simple white dishes.
They’re timeless.
They mix together beautifully.
Food looks pretty on them.
And if one breaks, I don’t have to mourn the loss of a $30 dinner plate.
Over the years, I’ve found quite a few of mine at our local transfer station.
Our transfer station has an area where people can leave usable things rather than throwing them away. I always take a quick look.
You just never know.
I’ve brought home simple white plates, bowls, and other kitchen pieces that someone else no longer needed.
I give everything a thorough cleaning and sanitize it before it goes into my cupboards.
Then it gets another life.
What I especially love is that my dishes don’t have to be a perfectly matched set.
White is white.
A slightly different rim or shape doesn’t bother me at all.
Actually, I kind of like it.
In a small cottage kitchen, keeping the dishes mostly one color also makes my cabinets feel less visually cluttered.
Simple.
Useful.
Free.
Hard to beat that.
A Wooden Mirror That Found Its Home in My Mudroom
Another transfer station find was the wooden-framed mirror that now lives in my mudroom.
There wasn’t anything particularly fancy about it.
It was just a good, solid mirror with a wooden frame.
But I could immediately picture where it belonged.
That’s one of the questions I’ve learned to ask before bringing home something secondhand:
Do I know exactly where I’m going to put this?
If the answer is no, I try to leave it behind.
That rule has saved me from turning my tiny cottage into a storage unit for projects I might get around to “someday.”
This mirror was different.
I had a place for it.
The natural wood worked with the warm, collected feeling I wanted in the mudroom, and a mirror is especially useful near an entrance when you’re heading out the door.
Another person’s unwanted mirror became exactly what my little mudroom needed.
No shopping trip required.
The Antique Kitchen Table That Needed One More Piece
My kitchen table might be one of my favorite examples of why I love decorating with secondhand furniture.
I found a beautiful old table with a scrubbed antique wooden base.
The base had exactly the look I love.
Warm.
Worn.
Simple.
The kind of piece that looks like it has already lived several lives.
The problem was the top.
It was wooden and just a little too small for the base.
I loved the table, but the proportions never felt quite right.
So I lived with it for a while.
That’s another thing I’ve learned about decorating my cottage.
Not everything needs to be solved immediately.
Sometimes you need to let a space evolve until the right answer finds you.
And eventually…
It did.
For free.
I came across a coffee table that someone was giving away. I didn’t really need another coffee table, but what caught my attention was the top.
It was stone.
And it was slightly larger in diameter than the wooden top on my kitchen table.
Hmmmm.
I brought it home and tried the stone top on the antique base.
Perfect.
Suddenly the table had the proportions I’d wanted all along.
The scrubbed antique wood kept the cottage character I loved, while the stone top made the table feel more substantial and useful.
Two completely unrelated secondhand pieces became one table that feels like it was made for my kitchen.
Those are my favorite kinds of projects.
Not expensive.
Not complicated.
Just a little imagination and a willingness to see something for what it could be.
The Tiny Bombay Company Table From My Dad
Not every secondhand piece in my cottage was thrifted.
Some are meaningful because of where they came from.
One of those is a tiny Bombay Company table that belonged to my dad.
It isn’t large.
It isn’t particularly valuable.
But it might be one of the most useful pieces of furniture I own.
Because my cottage is so small, furniture that can move around and serve more than one purpose earns its keep around here.
This little table does exactly that.
I move it wherever I need it.
Next to a chair.
Beside the couch.
Near the bed.
Wherever I happen to need a spot for a cup of coffee, a book, a lamp, or whatever else I’m carrying around.
It just works.
But of course, that’s not really why I’ve kept it.
It was Dad’s.
There is something comforting about having ordinary objects from people we love woven into our everyday lives.
I don’t need to display the table like a precious antique.
I use it.
I think Dad would have appreciated that.
Why I Love Decorating With Secondhand Finds
My love of secondhand home decor isn’t only about saving money.
Although that certainly helps.
Owning and renovating a home on one income means I’m always thinking about where my money will have the biggest impact.
If I can find a beautiful table secondhand for a fraction of what something new would cost, that leaves money for the things I can’t thrift.
Windows.
Insulation.
Heating.
Plumbing.
Those aren’t nearly as fun to photograph.
But they’re pretty important.
Buying secondhand also lets me create a home that doesn’t look like I ordered an entire room from one catalog.
I don’t want that.
I like rooms that feel collected.
A little old.
A little new.
A little imperfect.
A little unexpected.
I want someone to walk into my cottage and wonder where something came from.
Because chances are…
There’s a story.
Like the original paintings hanging throughout my cottage.
I found them in an antique store off the beaten path, just over the New York border.
The shop owner told me they had come from a huge barn filled with the work of a husband and wife who had both been accomplished and prolific Vermont artists.
Their family had kept the collection together.
And somehow, a few of those paintings eventually found their way to this little cottage.
I loved them immediately.
The landscapes feel like Vermont.
The old frames are beautiful.
Nothing about them is perfect or mass-produced.
And the best part?
I paid about $22.
For all of them.
Original art.
Old frames.
A little piece of Vermont history.
Twenty-two dollars.
That’s the kind of decorating I love.
And it’s exactly why I’ll choose an out-of-the-way antique shop, a Facebook Marketplace listing, or the free table at the transfer station over a big-box decor aisle almost every time.
How I Decide What Comes Home With Me
Living in a small home has made me much more thoughtful about thrifting.
Free isn’t really free if I have to store it for three years.
So I’ve developed a few unofficial rules.
I ask myself:
Do I have a place for it?
Will I actually use it?
Is it better than something I already own?
Can I easily clean or repair it?
Does it feel like me?
If I can’t answer yes to at least a couple of those questions, I usually walk away.
Usually.
I’m still human.
And Facebook Marketplace exists.
A Home Doesn’t Have to Be Expensive to Feel Beautiful
I think there can be pressure when we’re decorating our homes to make everything look finished.
Matched.
New.
Perfect.
I’ve become less interested in all of that.
My little Vermont cottage isn’t a showroom.
It’s my home.
The white dishes from the transfer station hold the meals I cook.
The free mirror catches my reflection on my way out the door.
The kitchen table is made from pieces that weren’t even intended to go together.
Dad’s little table follows me around the house wherever I need it.
None of those things are valuable because of what they cost.
They’re valuable because they’re part of my life.
Maybe that’s what I love most about decorating with secondhand finds.
You aren’t just buying things.
You’re noticing possibilities.
You’re taking something another person no longer needs and asking:
Could this belong here?
Sometimes the answer is no.
But every once in a while…
You bring something home.
You clean it up.
You move it around.
You give it another purpose.
And somehow it looks like it was always meant to be there.
That’s my favorite kind of decorating.
And in this little cottage, I hope I never run out of room for a few more good stories.
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