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Oct 28, 2023

9 Items You Should Never Pass Up If You See Them On the Street

Every item on this page was hand-picked by a House Beautiful editor. We may earn

Every item on this page was hand-picked by a House Beautiful editor. We may earn commission on some of the items you choose to buy.

Someone else's trash really could be your treasure

You know what gives designers a bigger thrill than thrift store gems and flea market hauls? Street finds. Whether these discarded treasures are left on a curb, in an alley, or on a stoop, stumbling across them being given away for free is undeniably "one of the greatest pleasures in life," says Ksenya Malina, principal at Time & Place Interiors, a New York-based design studio focused on combining vintage and modern decor.

Picture it: You're out for a walk and serendipity strikes. There's a piece of furniture or a unique home decor in your path, free for the taking and you know it'll fit your space just right. Then logic kicks in. Is this a find that's actually worth hauling several blocks home or recruiting a friend with a truck to come help you pick up?

If you've got an angel sitting on one shoulder whispering "Fate meant that mirror for you," and a devil on the other shouting "What, now you're picking through the trash?" we're here to mediate your inner debate by calling in the experts. We asked designers which street finds labeled "free" are always worth calling dibs on. Here are the items they get most excited about.

If you stumble upon a vintage chair with good bones, snatch it up, says Malina, explaining, "A side chair can be used in an entry to put on shoes, for extra guest seating, or to hold a stack of overflow books."

Plus, unlike with soft upholstered furniture, bed bugs tend to stay away from hard surfaces, she says, so wooden chairs are safer to haul home. Just check to make sure the wood is sturdy. If the upholstery is a little worn, don't fret; it can be reupholstered relatively easily and inexpensively, she points out. Unlike a large piece of furniture like a sofa, you're just working with cleaning up a little fabric.

Dinnerware often get discarded when part of a set breaks, Malina says. "If you find a few great plates that don't complete a whole set, you can still mix them in with your own dishes to create an eclectic, lively tablescape," she says. Keep an eye out for markings indicating vintage or high-end brands such Russel Wright, Andy Bauer, Mikasa, Lenox, or Villeroy & Boch.

"A mirror of any kind is an immediate 'yes' for me, especially if the glass has aged," says Caroline Kopp, an interior designer in Westport, Connecticut. A naturally antiqued mirror has damage and wear to the backside of the glass, which makes it undesirable to some but "spectacularly imperfect," to Kopp and other vintage fans or design lovers. This aging can mean an all-over haziness, a series of marks, or a big blotch. "For us mirror lovers this is not a flaw, and is in fact very exciting," she says.

And if you like your mirrors imperfect, but still improved from the way you find them, Kopp advises that the best way to restore a piece of antique glass is to have it put in a new frame, or re-finish the frame it is already in.

Kopp says she once carried a mid-century dresser down the street drawer by drawer because it was too heavy to lift. "I lacquered it in the best pale warm gray—Benjamin Moore Intense White—and then had a new top made for it out of Calacatta marble," she recalls.

To tell the age of a dresser, you can open the top drawer and see if you notice any branding on the side walls of the drawer, Kopp says. These may be on the inside or outside of that side surface. From here, Google the name you find and it will likely come up on eBay or other sites, she says.

You can also look to design cues to tell you the piece's age. "Stylistically, a mid-century dresser is likely to have pulls that are wooden and carved from the same piece of wood as the drawer front, in a curved or swooping shape," Kopp says. "The feet are often a slanted cone shape."

Just keep in mind that you’ve got to be committed to getting a mid-century piece home because they're a heavy haul, since they were built using old school construction methods and real wood, not the cheap particle board of today, Kopp points out.

Always grab an interesting vintage table lamp, says Los Angeles interior designer Stefani Stein.

Vintage table lamps tend to have a less manufactured appearance. Whether an elegant Marbro lamp or a casual Mid-century modern studio pottery lamp, the finishes will feel more unique and the lamps tend to be more weighty. And of course, a bit of patina is always a good thing!

Your local lamp shop can rewire for you—a must for safety, she says. If they don't have lamp shades, there are many great resources online for lamp shades like Oka, The Shade Shop, and Maison Flaneur, all of which have a range of options.

Random remnants of marble or stone countertops are great to pick up and have recut into something you can use, like a cutting board or a small table top, says Dana Feagles, founder and principal interior designer at Revelry Interior Design in Northern California. A little light scrubbing with soap, water, and cloth will clean up stone, she says.

"You can have any tile installer cut the stone for you," Feagles advises. "Getting it home will take some thought, however, because marble and stone are quite heavy."

If you see a nightstand or dresser for the taking, open up the drawers and look for a small metal plaque with an insignia, which can indicate it was made by an artisan furniture maker rather than something that was mass produced, Feagles says. The metal plaque is the maker's "signature" and you can look it up quickly on your phone.

"Similarly, keep your eye open for furniture with drawer pulls or handles on it, and look closely at the hardware as it may be worth running home for a screwdriver to salvage that hardware," she says. "Older furniture is more likely to use solid bronze hardware, which is high-quality and thus more expensive. If it feels heavy in your hand, it's probably solid bronze."

"I never pass up the opportunity to brake for a beautiful or interesting piece of wicker or rattan on the sidewalk that needs a little bit of loving care," says Portsmouth, New Hampshire-based designer Debbe Daley, who feels these pieces can give great texture to a room. Oftentimes, she says, the legs of abandoned wicker pieces are unwinding, but this is something you can easily fix with a staple gun and some glue.

She points out that antique wicker lift-top sewing stands are great repurposed as planters for showcasing indoor plants, like a Boston fern. You might also find some vintage wicker porch chairs which she says are easy to clean with dish soap and and a garden hose, then top with new cushions. Or, you could luck out with a desk like the one Daley found on the street and spruced up in the image above.

Often, patio furniture will get left on the curb once it gets a little rusty, Daley says. But if you're up for a little rehab project, you can remove the rust from the metal, give it a fresh coat of paint, and add new cushions to any chairs. Daley brought the 1960s Italian mid-century modern iron garden table above back to life by removing rust from a snail motif and painting it white.

Brittany Anas is a former newspaper reporter (The Denver Post, Boulder Daily Camera) turned freelance writer. Before she struck out on her own, she covered just about every beat—from higher education to crime. Now she writes about food, cocktails, travel, and lifestyle topics for Men's Journal, House Beautiful, Forbes, Simplemost, Shondaland, Livability, Hearst newspapers, TripSavvy and more. In her free time, she coaches basketball, crashes pools, and loves hanging out with her rude-but-adorable Boston Terrier that never got the memo the breed is nicknamed "America's gentleman."

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