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Accessorize your Living
Room with Unique Items

Accessorizing your living room with finds from flea markets and estate sales is a fun, inexpensive way to add nostalgia and history to your home. Pottery Barn's creative team scours flea markets all over the world looking for interesting pieces to combine with and inspire merchandise. Seemingly ordinary finds can include an Americana foot stool, a pair of needlepoint pillows, a rustic watering can or a timeworn candlestick. When mixed with updated furnishings, they create a look that is eclectic, unexpected and completely your own.

If you really like an object that's extra rough around the edges, consider reconditioning it; many pieces can be easily altered to make them ready for display. Woods can be whitewashed to brighten them up, metals can be stripped to make them look even more aged, and lived-in chairs can be re-upholstered in a favorite fabric or given new cushion pads. Covering a dilapidated metal or wood table with mosaic tiles is a relatively easy way to transform the look of the piece.

The important thing to remember when selecting second-hand objects is to trust your instincts. If something catches your eye across the crowded tables of a flea market, go take a closer look. Relying on your first reaction when shopping is the key to creating a space that reflects your own creativity and vision.

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Be inventive when trying to find the right location for your found treasures. A collection of green-glass jars looks beautiful in front of large picture window.

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Stacy Borocz, collector of antiques and accessories, talks about what she loves about objects with a real history behind them, and how she procures Pottery Barn's collection of one–of–a–kind items.