She took Studio 5’s Jennifer Stagg to one of her favorite thrift stores—and the transformations are amazing.
Looking around Shannon Crawford’s home, you would never guess most of the furniture and decorations are either from thrift stores or even came from someone’s garbage.
“I redid this chair– this is a find that I found at DI,” Shannon said. “And this chair I actually found in Salt Lake on the side of the road.”
This thrifty diva has proven, one man’s trash really is her treasure.
“A simple coat of paint, most of the time, is going to make anything look 100 percent new and fabulous in your house,” she said.
Shannon says when she was young, her mother taught her the value of making something old new again. They would drive around town, looking for furniture that had been thrown away– and refinish it. It’s a skill she’s perfected– and everything in her house from chairs to cabinets, shelves to lamp shades is either refinished or purchased at a thrift store- proving all it takes is a good eye and some elbow grease to get a designer look.
“So many times people take things to thrift stores, or even consignment stores that are still in really good condition, you just have to go out and know what you’re looking for,” she said.
We hit the thrift store with Shannon and you won’t believe what we found. First, Shannon directed us straight to the furniture section. She says to check everything for water damage, easily replaced missing pieces, and good strong bones. Shannon says this is the most important section to hit first, because the good stuff goes fast. And right away, we found our first great find of the day—an old and broken yellow desk for $25. Next we headed out to the loading dock. These are items not even placed on the floor yet, and a great place to snag something special before someone else does.
Shannon spotted some chairs. When our photographer spotted that it was a set of two, we were sold. We needed some decor to go with our furniture deals, so we rolled inside, in search of some of Shannon’s favorite thrift store finds, milk glass. And after picking up some silver trays, a tea set, we found a mirror Shannon said had a lot of potential.
With a grand total of 89 dollars, Shannon was leaving with a cart full of possibilities.
You won’t believe what some paint and her creativity did to transform the items.
Link to Shannon’s blog: saltlakedesignergal.blogspot.com/
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