A Lovely Minneapolis Home Full of Thrifted Buys & Frugal Finds

Name: Tavia Tindall
Location: North Minneapolis, Minnesota
Size: 1,496 square feet
Years lived in: Owned 1 year

Tavia is one of the lucky few who have been blessed by a full and complete home after only a year of home ownership and barely spending a thing. Friends and family, thrift stores, and garage sales have allowed her to fill her space with unique, original, and rare decor from numerous eras and styles.

Tavia stresses the functionality and frugality of melding various styles and eras of furniture together. Whether the pieces have sentimental value, were thrifted, free or gifted, Tavia has found a way to keep these pieces cohesive, tossing in bright and colorful elements and textures along the way.

My Style: Modern-vintage with a narrative eclectic style. My budget is limited so my style is based on a life of thrifting, dumpster diving, and IKEA purchases, which makes for an “anything goes” collection. Most of my belongings narrate some aspect of my life because of the stories and people attached to my stuff.

Inspiration: Growing up in Wisconsin, my family made more than one trip to the House on the Rock, a kind of statement house built by the zany architect Alex Jordan. The house was like a museum of bizarre collections: Tiffany glass, dolls, antique books, musical instruments playing on their own, taxidermy animals sticking out of toilets…all housed in these crazy colorful rooms with surrounding architectural concepts. Understandably, it’s often described as creepy and macabre, but as a kid I loved it. It was so interesting and unexpected and defied anything conventional. No doubt a little of that house seeped into my being.

I’ve also drawn heavily from The Essential House Book: Getting Back to Basics by Terence Conran and Simply Contemporary: Inspirations for the Modern Home by Solvi Dos Santos. Both are great at illustrating how to blend modern with vintage.

Favorite Element: I love the old windows in this house and the character in the wood floors. As for my favorite personal style element, it’d have to be the collection of wooden animals and figures my grandfather carved for me when I was a little girl. After decades of keeping them in a shoe box, I finally have a place to display them.

Biggest Challenge: Walking the fine line between balance and chaos. I want my house to reflect me and the things I love, but it’s hard to relax in a space that feels crammed.

What Friends Say: They usually walk in and eventually get around to pointing at something and saying “Can I have that?”

Biggest Embarrassment: The insane number of books I’ve stuffed into every corner of this house.

Proudest DIY: Adapting an old storm window I found in the garage into a photo installation of my grandmother and great-grandmother. It’d have gone into the garbage otherwise. Instead I made into something that was beautiful and meaningful.

Biggest Indulgence: Buying a NEW couch when I moved in. I’d never purchased such a big ticket item before, but always adopted discards from friends and family.

Best Advice: You don’t have to spend a ton of money to make your house great; in fact, buying or finding used furniture and objects creates a totally unique home that even the wealthiest person would be challenged to replicate. Also, don’t be afraid to mix styles. I’ve found perfect harmony in having a vintage piece next to something modern and in combining cultural and regional designs that share similarity in color or pattern.

Dream Sources: Garage sales, thrift stores, and dumpsters. Of course, there’s part of me that dreams of going to a flea market in Paris someday.

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