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Best Thrift Store for Vintage Furniture

White Dove Thrift

Outside of a plain old antiques store, this is the place where the best local collection of slightly tarnished vintage furniture resides. Every stick of Stickley is waiting for you to discover it and bring it home; and next time you drive past this Seventh Avenue destination and see a moving van out front, pull in! Nonstop deliveries to this popular thrift means that the vintage stuff just keeps arriving — and flying out the door, too, because local pickers love this joint. We do, as well — our most recent finds at this super-chic furniture emporium include a blond book shelf with built-in lamp (a steal at only $29), a well-loved handmade side table ($24), and a rather large ottoman that, while not strictly an antique, was still too good a deal to pass up. Go find one of your own at White Dove.

Best Thrift Store for Vintage Dishware

Flo's on 7th

The best thing about our new set of Brockware Chanticleer dishware is that we got it for next to nothing, because we shop at Flo's. The buyers there seem to know what they have — often, dishes and serving pieces will be tagged with the set's current eBay value — but they're not doing that weird thing where they lock it all up in a case and over-price it. Flo's is a thrift store, and the owners know it. So one can find great cooling trays and warming dishes and coffee pots and stemware and plated flatware for nearly no money at all. The former Florence Crittenton Thrift Shoppe also offers furniture, clothing, appliances, and even great old 45 RPM records, but it's the Harkerware and the Anchor Hocking and the Stengl that keep us coming back. (Fans of old linens will want to make Flo's a regular haunt, too, because vintage tablecloths, napkins, and window treatments are among this shop's other specialties.)

Best Thrift Store for Vintage Cookware

Goodwill

We thought it was a total fluke when we found two minty-mint Wearever cook-pots from the 1940s at this thrift store, but then a few weeks later, we found the matching saucepan — with its lid, too! After that, we made this unusually clean shop a regular stop. We've since found a like-new fondue set, still in its avocado-green box, and a Minute-Man turkey roaster with its original draining pan — something we'd been looking for on eBay forever. We bought it, and now we're waiting for the day when we walk into this cookware-centric secondhand store to see the Wearever coffee pot we need to complete our set. It'll happen. Meantime, see you there!

Best Thrift Store for Big, Ugly Lamps

Goodwill

There was this corner in our home that needed nothing so much as a big, ugly table lamp. Off we headed to the Goodwill at 32nd Street and Thomas, because we'd seen a colossal monster of a lamp there not long before. Little did we know we'd find not one giant lamp, but three — one of them a floor model! We bought the one shaped like a giant ship in a bottle (the bottle lights up, as does the top part with the shade on it) and are tempted to go back for the big plaster cherub holding a snow globe we saw there — all it needs is a nice shade, and just the right corner of someone's house to live in . . .

Best Thrift Store for Small Appliances

Savers

We wanted an electric can opener but didn't want to pay full price; we knew we'd be using it only to open the occasional can of dog food. And so we headed straight to the Bell Road Savers in Peoria, because we knew they have practically an entire department devoted to small appliances. We found a nice almond-colored can opener for five bones, and then cruised around admiring all the nice Crock-Pots and Mr. Coffees. Which, of course, led to our purchase of a vintage Mixmaster blender with a glass canister and a funny little pamphlet with fruity drink recipes stuffed inside. Next time you need a little thing that plugs into an electric outlet, head to this thrift.

Best Thrift Store for Cheap Gifts

Assistance League Thrift

We admit it: There's a box in our closet where we keep inexpensive gifts we've scored at Assistance League Thrift, one of the best thrift shops in town for still-in-the-box re-giftables. Recently, we've found a cute box of vintage stationery for a dollar; a still-wrapped-in-plastic potpourri candle; and a neat spice rack (also still in its original box) shaped like a giraffe that we know will make the perfect last-minute hostess gift. This is the best thrift store in town for those of us who don't love a smelly secondhand store jammed with clothing and piles of junk. Assistance League's merch is all neatly displayed and turns over quickly — so get there, pronto, for nice gifty stuff priced to move.

Best Thrift Store Antique Department

Indian School Thrift

We secretly hate those glass cases in thrift stores, where the "good stuff" has been locked away because someone in a backroom has decided that a headless Shirley Temple doll with a torn dress is valuable and should cost $40. And there's never anyone around with a key to show us the thing we want, anyway. But at Indian School Thrift, we love the glass cases — because they're just one part of a whole department of neatly arranged, actually vintage things for sale. This department is always manned by a helpful clerk who's happy to take stuff out of the cases, or off of the shelf behind the cases, and let us examine them. The prices are more than fair, and we've never seen junk from the '80s being pawned off as "antique" here. Instead, we find honest-to-gosh old stuff, all of it fairly priced and accessible. The thrift store itself is also full of cool bargains, but the real finds are to be found at the special section over in the corner, which you won't want to miss checking out.

Best Thrift Store Nobody Knows About

Eve's Treasures

It's the glassware that we love the best. No, wait. It's the stunning selection of hardcover books for sale here. Or is it the whole roomful of vintage record albums that keep drawing us back, over and over again, to this cute little best-kept-secret of a thrift shop? We can't decide, so we keep going back, and once there, we pile up on used housewares and books and dishes . . . and we can't help noticing that the room full of nice, clean clothing is always full of shoppers, too. Three nice-size rooms full of impossibly low-priced stuff, tucked away in a big strip mall on the west side — that's Eve's Treasures, a place worth digging through. Don't miss their half-off Saturdays and their Senior Discount days; we never do.

Best Midcentury Modern Furniture

Modern Manor

If you spend considerable time on Craigslist employing search terms like "teak," "Danish," and "Eames," pause your rapidly moving fingers. Now, instead of compulsively hitting refresh on that shady search page again, redirect your eyes to Ryan and Kylie Durkin's website for a look at their mod treasures. Nice, right? We thought you'd like Modern Manor. Once you manage to get yourself over to their mid-century furniture boutique, in its warehouse-style building, you'll find pieces in brilliant condition dating from the 1940s to the '70s, many of which would pop up with your preferred search terms. Except instead of stalking garage sales and risking creep association, you're ready to inject some major personality into your home.

Best Monthly Vintage Sale

Sweet Salvage

Every month, we strive to make a little more room in our apartment in hopes of squeezing in a new vintage find from Sweet Salvage. The décor shop opens its doors every third Thursday through Sunday with a new theme (the second-ever, held around Halloween, was "mad scientist") and fresh merchandise. To its sprawling Seventh Avenue space, shoppers flock to find globes, signage lettering, metal lockers, a vide-poche or two, and large pieces like reupholstered couches and chairs, tables, desks, and, well, just about anything else you might desire. Items fly fast, so be sure to get to the store as early as possible if you want first dibs on the decorative wares. We can't promise we'll be able to tame our competitive nature when it comes to old-timey chemistry sets and massive world maps.

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