Thrifting in Santa Fe

My how the time flies! It was my every intention to have this blog post up a week after we got back from Santa Fe. But, as you can see, a month later, that didn’t happen. Nevertheless, I want to share how we thrifted in Santa Fe and found some amazing treasures that didn’t break the bank!

My husband and I recently celebrated our 5 year wedding anniversary and we wanted to get away. We’ve always heard wonderful things about Santa Fe and, it was close so we decided to make the trip – and we’re so glad we did. Santa Fe is absolutely magical!

On our very first day in Santa Fe, we made a stop at the Goodwill down the street from our hotel. We found a beautiful hand carved table made in Mexico for only $6.

Then, we headed to the downtown area. On our way, we saw a sign for an estate sale. We decided to check it out (and I’m so thankful we did!). As we drove further and further away from the city center, we finally arrived at a cute adobe house in a neighborhood in the mountains. We believe it was the last day of the sale because everything under $100 was half off and everything else “negotiable.” This was an art collectors house. They had art ranging from sculptures to rugs, paintings to drawings to everything in between. They even had one painting that was $10,000. Yikes.

We ended up picking up a native soil pottery piece (only $2.50), a fiestware coffee mug, and my favorite piece of all…

This piece was in the last room we went into and it was propped up on a dresser. It was originally $35 but with the sale is was half of that. I was thrilled to take home a piece of art from this collector – it made it that much more special.

I realize it’s a very subjective piece and it may not be everyone’s taste but I like to look at it in a few different ways. 1.) I see a tree and a shadow of a tree. Which 2.) leads me to the next way of looking at this which is two sides of yourself. There are always two sides to everyone. The side the world sees and the side that you have all to yourself, internally that no one could ever know the extent of. While some may see this as a blob of black ink, I like to think it means a little more. 🙂

The next day we explored downtown Santa Fe a little more but, as evening neared, the small shops started to close, and we found ourselves wanting to find more thrift stores. We ended up finding a Savers, Salvation Army, and a Habitat for Humanity Restore.

Out of all of them, my favorite was Savers. I found this awesome wall sconce/sculpture and a beautiful chair from 1905! It still had its original sticker on the bottom and as soon as we got back to the hotel I started researching and found out more about it; and that’s half the fun of thrifting in my opinion! I have an unintentional collection of chairs and was so happy to add this to the collection – oh yeah, it was only $6!

If you’re going to be in Santa Fe and want to thrift, here is a list of where we went:

There are other antique and consignment shops in town but we didn’t stop in because we really enjoy the thrill of thrifting more so than booth-type shops.

One place I forgot to mention that we went was the Farmers Market. We actually went on a rainy Tuesday but it was still glorious. I found some beautiful sage bundles and chili peppers with dried flowers. We kept seeing the chili peppers EVERYWHERE in Santa Fe and, my grandma even had some hanging in her house for as long as I can remember, but that style never felt like “me.” But, we met a sweet man whose wife makes these chili peppers and I instantly fell in love and felt like these encompassed the symbol of Santa Fe with a little extra flare that felt like it was a little bit of me.

I hope you can make it to Santa Fe soon because I think you’ll love it! Let me know if you’ve ever been and, if so, your favorite things to do while you’re there!