Designing a Beautiful Room with Thrifted Finds
That Thrifting Show asks contestants and viewers at home to imagine a world where we decorate only with secondhand home decor, promoting sustainability from beginning to end. Teams assemble to transform a blank canvas of a room into a finished masterclass in home decor, using only $2000 of thrifted finds, and a winner is picked by style experts Robert Hartwell, Dani Klaric, and Preston Konrad.
“The ability to do it for under $2,000… shows our viewers that anything is possible,” Spencer says. "It's not about bigger, shinier, newer...it's about pieces and rooms that tell a story, and that's what this show is all about, creating these layered rooms using only vintage, upcycled, thrifted, thrown-away pieces, and showing that you don't need a lot of money to create a really beautiful room."
One outlet in particular was consistently a hit for That Thrifting Show contestants. “Facebook Marketplace was a goldmine for our teams," Spencer says. "The amount of items sourced… not only for very low costs, but also a lot of times free, was a godsend and also a really great hack for people designing on a budget.”
The winning team of each episode gets to keep the thrifted pieces from both teams' finished rooms, giving each item yet another life after the cameras turn off. Each show ends with a home video of the winning team and what they did with every piece, according to Spencer.
Getting Started with Thrifting
Even if you're not ready to remodel your entire home with thrifted finds, thrifting is for everyone. “You can dip your toe into the vintage thrifted world without having to feel overwhelmed," Spencer says. “Start at a flea market—it’s usually a little bit more curated—or a charity thrift shop that’s got a more curated collection… that can feel less overwhelming."
Charity thrift shops are one of Spencer's favorite places to thrift. "I am a huge fan of charity thrift shops because everybody wins," she says. "You're finding wonderful pieces that someone has donated, and it feels great to know that the money that you're spending, at least some of it, is going to a really good cause."
No matter where or how much you thrift, choosing to shop used is great for the planet and allows you to own storied items. "It’s a really fun way to add a unique layer to a room,” Spencer says.
How to Watch
The first season of That Thrifting Show premieres on Freeform on Thursday, March 19, at 9 p.m. ET. You can catch the first episode—rather, the first six episodes—on Hulu the next day. The second half of the 12-episode season will be released later this spring.
