Budget Antiques

Say "antiques" and most people think of pricey furniture or priceless portraits. However, anything that's been around a long time can qualify as an antique; its dings and dents merely give it character, which is what home decorators look for when they're designing on a budget.

Making imaginative use of antiques, collectibles and architectural salvage can help you create a unique statement in your home decor. To begin with, ask yourself three questions:

* Will this item work as a container?

* Would this item serve as artwork?

* Where would this item fit at home?

To get your creativity humming, here are some ideas for imaginative use of items that can be found at flea markets, thrift stores, secondhand stores and consignment shops.

Punch a hole in a tin bread box and transform it into a vase or pot for plants.  It also could be used to store recipes in the kitchen. Meanwhile an old rusty stove could become a patio centerpiece as an indoor-outdoor plant holder with potted flowers in the burner holes.

It sounds goofy at first, but try putting fat pillar candles inside old deep-fryer baskets to make fascinating luminaries for patio lighting. Finally, any old glass containers, such as canning jars, milk bottles and so on, can be vases for flowers on the kitchen table, or serve as holders for supplies in the home office! Let your imagination take over and you will soon find heaps of design ideas for kitchens.

Building parts always can have new uses. For instance, a curly corbel -- a corner piece often seen on "gingerbread" style Victorian homes – can become a holder for a collectible plate or a small painting. A door with panels can become a bulletin board with stick-on cork or a blackboard with some blackboard paint. It could even become a full-length mirror by replacing the panels with mirror glass. What's more, you don't have to hang it; it can lean against a wall.

Often things that appear to have seen better days get a new lease on life with a little imagination. For instance, a distinctive painted-tin light fixture could become a candleholder, while an old pitchfork screwed into a wall makes a dandy coat rack. Old canvas harvesting bags can be used to hold magazines, while the head of a rake could serve as a set of hooks to hang up those small garden tools that often go missing.

Don't try to find collectible toys, because they'll cost hundreds of dollars if they still work. Instead, use old toys in new ways. For instance, glue some magnets to random game pieces such as chessmen or checkers and you have distinctive memo holders for the refrigerator. If your home is like many, any kind of old tin truck could help corral the multiple remote controls that operate the TV, DVD player, game systems and so on.

Used tennis rackets can make great photo frames for the family room, a tennis player's den or a teen-agers room. Just tuck the snapshots into the strings, whether they're broken or not. If the strings are completely gone, use the space to house one large family photo or a favorite poster.

Any piece of so-called "junk" can be renewed as a unique accessory in your home decor.