Thrifting for Kitchen Accessories

This time of year we’re all starting to think about the holiday season that is just around the corner. I’ll be joining a group of friends on October 6 to share some fun Halloween tablescapes. This Blog Hop is an annual favorite and I hope you’ll join us.

Welcome to the Blog today, Friends!

Today we’re going to be exploring three kitchen items that are easy to find in thrift stores, along with a little bonus item at the end.

Kitchen things are some of my favorite items to look for when I’m out thrifting. There are just so many possibilities! The kitchen category seems to have a little bit of everything, from practical workhorses to pretty little pieces that make you wonder how you ever managed without them.

And one of the things I love most about thrifting for kitchen accessories is that you can often find some really good buys. A single item will generally run somewhere around $2–$5, making this one of the easiest categories for finding useful treasures without spending much money. That’s always a win in my book!

Kitchen accessories also fall into that wonderful “useful” category. Most of what I bring home from this section of the thrift store actually gets used frequently in my kitchen. I love finding something that is not only a good bargain but also earns its keep once it comes home with me.

So today, let’s take a look at three of my favorite kitchen items to thrift: dish towels, baking dishes, and mixing bowls. I’ll share what I look for, a few tips for finding the good ones, and why these simple kitchen staples are worth keeping an eye out for on your next thrifting adventure.

And, of course, I have a bonus item to share with you, too. Because when it comes to thrifting, three is a perfectly reasonable number…until you find that fourth treasure!

Kitchen Towels

Let’s begin with kitchen towels. These can be hand towels or dish towels, depending on what you need them for. Hand towels are there for drying your hands, while dish towels are the workhorses that help dry those freshly rinsed dishes. The towels pictured above are all dish towels.

When I’m looking for dish towels, I like to choose linen or a cotton blend. They’re absorbent, wash well, and are just right for drying dishes without leaving you with a towel that feels like it has given up on life after the first use! They also come in all sorts of colors, patterns, and sizes, so there’s plenty of opportunity to find something that works with your kitchen.

Starting from the top, the first towel is specific to a particular season—in this case, Christmas. When you’re decorating your home for the holidays, seasonal kitchen towels are such a fun and inexpensive way to bring a little holiday spirit into the kitchen. You can even use the colors in the towel as inspiration for other kitchen decor, creating a coordinated look without having to redecorate the entire room. A little towel can go a surprisingly long way!

The second towel is perfect for spring or Easter. It features a variety of food and natural images, from rabbits to lemons and strawberries. I especially like that it’s monochromatic, which means it can work with almost any kitchen style. It has that lovely combination of being simple enough to blend in while still adding a fun little touch.

And then we have the lemon towel. This one is all about lemons growing on the tree, and the bright color immediately catches your eye. The French wording adds a little international flair, which I always enjoy. There’s something about a French-inspired kitchen towel that makes me want to put on a pretty apron and start baking something wonderful—even if I had no plans to bake that day!

This towel is also a little larger than the others, which makes it especially useful. It looks lovely displayed in the kitchen, but it’s also large enough to handle drying pots and pans after a big meal. Pretty and practical is a combination I’m always happy to find.

And here’s the really good news: each of these towels cost under $2! They’re all made from a nice linen or linen blend, they’re colorfast, and they wash beautifully. For something that gets used so frequently in the kitchen, I think that’s a terrific thrift-store find.

A Few Things to Check

As with any fabric purchase at the thrift store, take a moment to inspect each towel carefully before putting it in your cart. Look for stains, discoloration, small tears, frayed edges, or any other signs of wear. Because towels are generally so inexpensive, there’s really no reason to bring one home if it isn’t in excellent condition. There will be another towel waiting for you!

And one more little thrift-store habit I recommend: whenever you bring home fabric items, give them a good wash before introducing them into your living spaces. I like to toss thrifted towels, linens, and other washable fabrics into the washing machine as soon as I get home. Once they’re clean and fresh, they’re ready to become part of your home—and you can enjoy your bargain without wondering where it has been before it found you.

Kitchen towels may seem like a small thing, but they’re one of those simple thrifted purchases that can add color, personality, and usefulness to your everyday kitchen. And at under $2 each, you can have a little fun choosing them!

Bakeware

There’s also lots of bakeware to be found at thrift shops. You’ll usually see the common varieties—muffin tins, cookie sheets, loaf pans, and cake pans. And while those are certainly useful, every now and then you come across a more unusual piece of bakeware that can turn out something really special. Those are the ones that make me stop and take a second look!

I have two examples of this type of baking pan pictured above. The first is one I picked up just last week, and the timing couldn’t be better with the holiday season just around the corner. It’s a double baking pan that allows you to bake the top and bottom halves of a pumpkin in one pan at the same time. How fun is that?

Once the cake is finished baking, you let the two halves cool and then separate them. Add a seasonal filling between the layers, put the two halves back together, and you have an impressive pumpkin-shaped cake ready for the table. It’s one of those pieces that does a lot of the decorating work for you!

When I find interesting bakeware like this, I always check the maker. Both of the examples I’m showing you today are made by Nordic Ware. This is a great company known for making very heavy pans that are built to last. If the pan is properly prepared before baking, the finished cake should release easily from the form and retain all of those beautiful details. That’s what makes these specialty pans so much fun—you can create something that looks far more complicated than it actually was!

The second example is a mini Bundt cake pan. Each of the molds holds about a cup of batter and produces a lovely individual cake. These would be wonderful served with dinner, but I can also picture them arranged on a buffet for a special occasion. Individual little cakes always seem to make dessert feel just a bit more festive.

Nordic Ware marks its products right in the pan, which makes the bakeware relatively easy to identify when you’re out thrifting. They make plenty of less decorative pans and muffin tins, too, but the specialty shapes are particularly fun to discover. You can find them in all sorts of shapes and sizes, including designs made especially for Christmas, Easter, Valentine’s Day, Halloween, and other holidays.

If you find one of these specialty pans, it’s worth taking a moment to look up the current price online before you buy. That way you’ll have a better idea of whether you’ve found a bargain. I generally pay $5 or less for these types of pans, although I have often seen them priced at $10 or less.

And, as always, give the pan a careful inspection before putting it in your cart. Look for scratches, damage, or anything that might affect its use. A little time spent examining your thrift-store find can save you from bringing home something that looked like a treasure on the shelf but turns out to be more trouble than it’s worth.

Specialty bakeware is one of those thrift-store categories where it really pays to keep your eyes open. You may walk in looking for an ordinary muffin tin and walk out with a pumpkin cake pan instead. And honestly, I think that’s exactly the sort of shopping surprise we’re hoping for when we go thrifting!

Mixing Bowls

The first bowl I’m sharing with you today is the Naturesgood by Pfaltzgraff. Pfaltzgraff has been around for a very long time and is known for making a nice, dependable product. This particular bowl caught my eye because of all the pretty garden-inspired images decorating the outside.

The pattern features a variety of images you might find in a garden, all set against a lovely neutral off-white background. But then you get a little surprise when you look inside—the bowl is finished in a beautiful sage green. I love that combination! It gives the bowl plenty of personality without making it difficult to use with other things in the kitchen.

There are a couple of other details that make this bowl especially useful. First, it’s a nice, generous size, which is always a plus when you’re mixing up something that requires a little elbow room. And then there’s the pouring spout and the handy handle. Those two features make it particularly useful when you’re ready to transfer your batter from the bowl to the baking pan.

In fact, this is actually called a Batter Bowl, and it sells for around $90. So if you happen to spot one of these at your local thrift store for just a few dollars, you may have found yourself quite a bargain!

I especially like finding mixing bowls that are both practical and pretty. After all, if something is going to live in my kitchen and get used regularly, I’m always happy when it can bring a little beauty along with it.

The second bowl reminds me so much of the bowls my grandmother used in her kitchen. There’s just something about a vintage mixing bowl that can bring back memories, isn’t there? This one is a particularly pretty shade of yellow, although it does show some wear—which, to me, is part of its charm.

The bowl is labeled Bake Oven and was actually designed to go from the oven to the table, where it could be used as a serving bowl. I love pieces that can do double duty like that. It’s about 9 inches in diameter, a nice generous size for a mixing bowl, and sells for around $20.

For me, though, it’s the combination of the vintage feel, the cheerful yellow color, and the size that makes this one special. It looks like something that has a story to tell, and I can easily imagine it sitting in my grandmother’s kitchen, ready to be filled with cake batter, mashed potatoes, or whatever was being prepared for the family that day.

Those are the kinds of thrifted pieces I especially enjoy bringing home. They may have a little wear and a few signs of having been loved, but sometimes that history is exactly what makes them so appealing.

The last bowl I’m sharing with you today is a very recent Goodwill find, and this one definitely made me stop and take a second look!

As most of you already know, anything with a Williams-Sonoma label tends to carry a pretty hefty price tag. So when you spot something with that label at a thrift store—and it’s in excellent condition—it’s definitely worth taking a closer look.

This is a very large mixing and serving bowl that was made in England, and it has the sweetest Christmas motif around the outside. There’s a snowflake, a rocking horse, and several other little Christmas images tucked into the design. The bowl itself is a lovely yellow with a blue stripe around the rim, giving it a cheerful vintage-inspired look. Turn it over and you’ll find Made in England marked right on the bottom.

It’s a wonderful bowl for mixing bread dough, cake batter, and all sorts of holiday baking. It’s nice and heavy, too, so it has that substantial feel you want in a good mixing bowl. And when you’re finished mixing, it can easily make the transition to the table as a serving bowl.

When I’m spending a lot of time in the kitchen baking during the holidays, I love using dishes that fit the season. There’s just something about reaching for a Christmas bowl or a festive baking dish that makes the whole experience feel a little more special. If I’m going to spend the afternoon covered in flour, I might as well enjoy the view while I’m doing it!

This bowl sells for around $100–$120, and I was able to purchase it for just $7. Now that’s the kind of thrift-store find that makes you do a little happy dance! The other two bowls I’ve shared with you today were each under $5, so all three were wonderful additions to my kitchen without spending much money.

Practical Can Be Beautiful

And I think that’s what I enjoy most about thrifting for kitchen treasures. Kitchen things can be practical and beautiful. The things we use every day don’t have to be boring. A pretty bowl, a cheerful dish towel, or an interesting baking pan can add a little personality to the kitchen and make it a cozier, more enjoyable place to work.

Now for that bonus find I promised you.

A Little Tea Service

Teapots can certainly fall into the kitchen category, and this little tea service was such an interesting find that I just couldn’t leave it behind. It was a bit more expensive than most of the kitchen treasures I’ve shared with you today, coming in at around $20. But take a look and see if you agree with me that it was worth bringing home!

As you can see from the picture, this little set was really tarnished. In fact, it was so tarnished that it was difficult to see the design underneath all that darkness. At first glance, you might wonder why anyone would bring something like this home. And honestly, I wondered the same thing for about a minute!

The pieces are made from metal, but when I examined them carefully, I couldn’t find any silver hallmarks anywhere on the set. They are quite heavy, though, and each piece was marked with the designer’s name. That was enough to make me curious about what might be hiding underneath all that tarnish.

So I decided to take a chance.

I brought it home with the hope that a little silver polish might work some magic. Sometimes when you’re thrifting, you have to look past what’s right in front of you and imagine what a piece could look like with a little care. Of course, that can be a gamble—but when the gamble pays off, it’s so much fun!

Now the big question is…what was hiding underneath all that tarnish? Let’s see what a little cleaning revealed!

A few minutes and a little silver polish later, and these pieces really began to shine! You can actually see the reflections in the metal now, and the beautiful details that were almost completely hidden under the tarnish have come to life.

The design is just lovely. The handles are shaped like leaves, and the spout is beautifully chased with a leaf design. Even the tongs continue the leaf theme, and the lids on both the teapot and sugar bowl are topped with little leaves. The metal itself is hammered, which adds another layer of texture and interest. Once everything was polished, this little tea service presented beautifully!

I have a feeling most shoppers probably walked right past this set because of the tarnish. And that’s one of the things I love about thrifting. Sometimes you have to look a little closer and be willing to imagine what a piece might look like with a little care—and perhaps a bit of good old-fashioned “elbow grease.”

In this case, that little bit of effort certainly paid off.

This is a Michael Aram tea service, and pieces like this sell on the secondary market for around $500–$700. I paid about $20 for the set, so I think it’s safe to say this was a true thrift-store treasure!

And this is exactly why I never mind taking an extra minute to look at something that isn’t immediately perfect. Sometimes the pieces everyone else walks past are the ones that turn out to be the most wonderful finds. You just have to be willing to see a little sparkle hiding underneath the tarnish.

My little tea service now has a new home among some of my other treasured finds, and I get to enjoy it every day. I love that something so easily overlooked at the thrift store has become one of those pieces that makes me smile whenever I see it.

That’s the fun of thrifting. You never quite know what you’re going to find, and sometimes a little patience, curiosity, and yes—even a bit of elbow grease—can result in a true treasure!

Thanks so much for joining me here today, Friends. I hope you’ve enjoyed taking a look at some of these kitchen treasures and that I’ve given you a few things to keep an eye out for on your next thrift store adventure.

Wishing you lots of luck on your next thrift store outing. And remember, take a second look—you never know what might be hiding underneath the tarnish!

Happy thrifting!