How to Shop for Affordable Vintage Art

About a month ago, I revealed our most recent makeover… our living room! While that post had a decidedly holiday spin to the overall aesthetics, there are still so many details to discuss about the space. Details that I’ve been dying to share with you since the reveal! In particular, I am really excited to talk more about this tiny gallery wall that I created because I have SUCH a good tip for how to find vintage art. Seriously, it’s a good one. So let’s just dig right in.

Our Tiny Gallery Wall & My #1 Tip for Finding the BEST Vintage Art

Let’s just get my vintage painting and art shopping tip out of the way first, shall we? Ok, here goes: shop for artwork on Poshmark! I’ve talked a ton about this site in the past for clothing and accessories, but during one of my deep dives, I realized there is a home decor section of the site. From there, I typed in ‘oil painting’ and was blown away by all the listings that turned up. I was able to score a framed vintage oil painting for as little as $4!

And here’s my best tip for shopping for vintage art on Poshmark (or anything on there, to be honest): like the item you’re interested in because usually the seller will off you a private discount and decreased shipping. From there you can accept it… or counter! The counter offer feature is my jam because I love haggling and getting a good deal.

I would not have been able to pull off this gallery wall look without this shopping trick!

p.s. I also shopped on Chairish, eBay, Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, Depop, The Real Real, and OfferUp… but I had the best results on Poshmark — and was the most surprised to find good stuff there.

The Details of Our Gallery Wall

Ever since buying #mytinybungalow, I’ve wanted to hang loads and loads of vintage art. I’ve forever loved those homes with barely any wall showing, where the frames are practically all touching. The “problem” is that we have so many windows! Ok, that’s not really a problem, but when it comes to hanging art, it is.

With the living room refresh, I decided to curate groupings of oil paintings, photography, prints, and 3-dimensional ephemera to give our home more of a collected vibe. Personally, I don’t love when everything in a space feels super-new. So vintage art is a really easy way to combat that.

I started in the corner behind the new sofa because it’s usually where most people look when they first come in the front door. All of the art was chosen based on the pillow colors and grouped so that there is a good balance of color, texture, and scale.

When it comes to pulling together a grouping of artwork, I always suggest over-buying. After all, you can always turn around and sell whatever piece doesn’t work! And if you find a piece that needs to be framed, my go-to source is always IKEA. They have the most affordable frames until you feel ready to commit to professional framing.

In the spirit of total transparency, here’s the breakdown of where each piece of art came from + what I paid for each one:

• tiny painting of flowers – Poshmark, $16
• field of hay rolls – Poshmark, $22
• large mountain painting – Goodwill, $35
• large metal anchor – I’ve had this forever and can’t remember how much I paid for it… maybe $10?
• sailboat painting – by Miriam James, gifted
• mini white and gold cow skull – Evoke the Spirit, maybe 20 pesos?
• flowers and stein still life painting – Poshmark, $25
• old man portrait – Etsy, $135 (I really needed to possess this painting! Just look at the colors!)

• mountain painting – eBay, $29
• painting of Lucy by Sara Purr – this was the first Christmas gift I ever gave Sean!
• pastoral landscape – Etsy, $49
• humming bird print, one of a set of 3 – Poshmark, $70
• gold heart found in Sayulita, maybe 30 pesos?

What do you think of our tiny art collection? Now that our Christmas tree is down and the shelf moved to the other wall, I need to curate another grouping for the wall behind the lounge chair!

Photography & styling by Jojotastic.