For some, flea market or thrift shopping is a favorite pastime. A 1930s cottage-style buffet, a mid-century modern chair, a 19th-century crystal sconce woven into interiors that marry new and old &mdash; these finds can add instant history, charm and personality to a home. In this troubled economy, shoppers are looking to alternative, less costly sources for home furnishings.</p><p>Garage sales, flea markets, consignment stores, Craigslist &mdash; even alleys are fair game. And many shoppers are beginning to appreciate what aficionados long have enjoyed: the thrill of the hunt and the opportunity to land one-of-a-kind treasures.</p><p>&ldquo;Without fail, the most interesting and unique spaces belong to people who enjoy mixing up their d&eacute;cor with vintage furniture and accessories,&rdquo; says Tate Gunnerson, a writer and scout for home design magazines who also has a blog called &ldquo;Strange Closets.&rdquo;</p><p>Many top-tier designers such as New Yorker Vicente Wolf long have embraced vintage from flea market sources and incorporated them into high-end decor. Wolf has an especially good eye for centuries-old chairs, which he often spruces up with simple fabrics such as natural linen, and he shows that selective mismatching can be enormously stylish.</p><p>Magazine spreads showcase interiors that combine elegance with a smidgen of quirkiness, such as the high-low of the precious meeting the mundane. A similar effect appears in fashion &mdash; a woman who confidently wears Armani with just the right thrift costume brooch or a fabulous vintage scarf. </p><p>Some furnishings manufacturers have even tried to capture that sort of eclectic spirit in flea-market themed collections.</p><p>For the uninitiated, buying vintage can be overwhelming. At flea markets, the sea of object-filled tables can be dizzying. Nor are most thrift stores about visual merchandising, with few offering the neat, cohesive displays essential to smart furniture retailers. So once your eyes stop glazing over, you need to imagine how a piece will look &mdash; as-is or tweaked &mdash; in your own space.</p><p>But what to buy? If you don&rsquo;t have a prescribed agenda (say, finding a club chair for your TV room, furnishing a bedroom or picking up a storage piece for the bath), most experts advise the obvious: Buy what you like.</p><p>Stan Williams, a former fashion director for Maxim magazine who grew up in Independence, says: &ldquo;Look for quality over provenance. I don&rsquo;t care if something is 18th century or made in the &rsquo;70s. Don&rsquo;t look for brands. Decide if the item fits your needs. See if you can clean it up really easily. Can you afford it? I hate to see people pull out credit cards in thrift stores. Cash gives you great negotiating power and control over your budget.&rdquo;</p><p>Williams, a veteran flea market shopper, caught the bug early, when he routinely tagged along with his grandmother as she frequented garage sales. Especially exciting were &ldquo;take-all&rdquo; big boxes that often didn&rsquo;t cost more than $5 and sometimes netted surprising extravagances such as 24-karat gold-rimmed china.</p><p>In his book &ldquo;The Find&rdquo; (Clarkson Potter, $27.95), Williams dishes on decorating with secondhand stuff. For the tour of 24 stylish homes, he teamed up with Housing Works, a community-based AIDS service organization that runs nine upscale thrift shops in New York City.</p><p>One of the most obvious tips is to not be afraid to rejuvenate or repurpose. That&rsquo;s another appealing aspect of vintage or secondhand shopping: It boosts sustainability. An imaginative example of recycling is a fireplace mantel studded with oyster shells, which lend intriguing texture to a pristine white frame.