Saturdays in our family are usually spent driving the back roads of the Carolinas, Tennessee and Georgia searching for a new place to explore. As our travels have spread like an octopus from our home, we have found a number of favorite restaurants and other must do spots. I suspect that we’ve been in every thrift, consignment and junk shop in the region. The U-turns, short stops and flying turns we’ve made into their parking lots are often worthy of a professional race car driver.
We’ve visited a great many of the antique shops as well. But we tend to favor old furnishings rather than “antiques” and mostly go in the ones that look more like thrift stores and less like art galleries.
Anyway, I thought I would share our favorite thrift place in the whole region.
The Open Door in Waynesville, NC. Tucked away in the Froggy Bottom area on Commerce Street has got to be one of the best thrift stores for crafters and other fellow scrounges. And, unlike many of the better thrift shops in the region, there’s plenty of parking!
We love this place and any time we’re in Waynesville, it is on the itinerary. The real hidden treasure trove are the rooms upstairs. That’s where they put the better clothing – we don’t spend much time on the clothes but they do get some really pretty things. But, it’s the room beyond the clothes that is the perfect place for crafters. In that far room is Christmas, Easter, Halloween, party decorations and craft supplies stacked on tables, shelves and just about anywhere they can find a bit of space. The holiday things are there year round and so are the crafts.
We were there a few days ago and this treasure room was jam packed full of fresh goodies. More stuff than we had ever seen there before. They were a little low on yarn this time (they often have remnants of coned yarn from weavers and textile plants) but they did have a number of large spools of serger thread. The thread was a bit dirty from being tossed around but for a dollar, you could just unravel to the clean stuff as there were no real stains and only surface dirt.
Vintage patterns for sewing, knitting and general crafts are heaped in piles! Modern and vintage fabric is in small bundles on low shelves and racks. Stencils, ribbons and just about anything that doesn’t wear out or dry out can be found by those willing to climb a flight of stairs and dig through the piles.
Vintage, modern and everything in between fills the rest of this giant room. Pieces, parts, finished and the partially finished holiday decorations should inspire just about any crafter or artist.
They price the stuff to move and often just throw the smaller, loose bits in your bag with the rest of your purchase.
Best of all, all of the proceeds go towards feeding the hungry! What could be better than getting your craft on AND doing something good?
OMG. Thank you so much for sharing this place. I never knew it was there and I go to Waynesville all the time. The room upstairs with all of the craft patterns, supplies and books is amazing. This is now my favorite thrift store too.