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Personalize your decor with flea-market finds

Q:I hear you talk a lot about making a home "yours." What, exactly, do you mean by this, and how do you do it?

A:As much as I like to ogle over the showplace homes featured in decorating magazines, I'm put off by stuffy and stilted interiors that resemble showrooms, full of cookie-cutter furnishings and garden-variety accents.

The most wonderfully decorated homes are those that reflect the owner's unique personality.

Everywhere you turn, you discover clues about who the inhabitants are, what they love and the experiences they've had in life. In homes like these, I want to kick off my shoes, curl up on the couch and hear the stories behind each special treasure.

One fun and easy way to add loads of personal charm and character to your home is to showcase a few interesting or whimsical curiosities you've picked up at flea markets, auctions or antique stores.

When a friend of mine was traveling abroad, she spotted a unique fence finial shaped like a crown. Her husband thought she was crazy when she bought it, but it rang her bell. Back home, she tucked the crown finial into a bookcase, and when I came to visit, it was the first thing I noticed. I was thrilled to share in the fun as she told me about how she fell in love with this quirky piece.

If you're up for digging through flea markets and antique shops for one-of-a-kind pieces that will help make your home "yours," arm yourself with lots of patience and persistence, and these tips:

Keep an open mind

One of the beauties of rooting through flea markets is you never know what you'll find. While some people go antiquing with an agenda, I like to keep my options open. I've found that when I don't look for anything in particular, I make my greatest discoveries.

That's how I stumbled upon a fabulous set of antique engravings. I was rummaging through a pile of yellowed papers when I spotted a set of portraits of officers and other men of importance. I snatched them up, had them framed and hung them in a grid in Dan's office.

See with new eyes

Flea markets can also be a great source of inexpensive furniture you can fix up and personalize to make a room truly unique. A friend of mine has a great eye for these diamonds in the rough, and some of the finest pieces in her home are inexpensive flea-market finds she's transformed.

All you need is some creativity, a can of paint and a few yards of fabric and you can turn tired furniture into eye-catching conversation pieces. How about painting an old armoire the softest of yellows and using it in the nursery? Or slipcover a chair for your dressing room. Cover the back of an old bookcase in funky wallpaper for your teen's cool bedroom.

But don't stop with furnishings. Think of old books as a gold mine for vintage art: Carefully cut out botanicals, maps or nursery rhymes and frame them. Use a sugar dish as a toothbrush holder. Cover a blank wall with a montage of old hand mirrors. Stack old boxes on your mantel.

Pick pieces that grab your heart

Remember, the whole reason you're rooting around in the dust is to find pieces that push your emotional buttons and reveal something about your life.

Let your heart lead you. Perhaps you'll be drawn to embroidered tea towels that remind you of your grandmother, or a World War II recruiting poster that hearkens back to your favorite era of history, or a folk-art dog figurine that makes you think of your pet.

Mary Carol Garrity is the proprietor of the Nell Hill's home furnishings store in Atchison. Write to Mary Carol at nellhills@mail.lvnworth.com.