Want to know the secret to successful home design? Mixing break-the-bank furnishings with super affordable, one-of-a-kind finds to create a space that's refreshingly unique. Check out these local shops and designers - some you may already know, some you have yet to discover - for cool stuff to create an extraordinarily inspired look that's all your own.

Bargain Buys

Mixed Company
60 North 3rd Street, 215-627-8688;
www. themixedcompany.com

The get: Refinished, salvaged garden furniture

You could spend all your time this spring finding and refinishing retro garden furniture - but why bother, when Bernadette Lawler has already done such fabulous job?

At her addictive art, furniture and lifestyle boutique in Old City, Lawler offers salvaged outdoor furniture restored and repainted in tropical - punch shades - like fuchsia 1940s garden chair ($150), and a 1960s glass table with yellow-green trim and four matching chairs accented with a flower-bouquet seat design ($750 for the set). "I always look for heavy iron vintage pieces because of the design, plus they're made really well. Then I use a color that will really make the piece pop", say Lawler.

Her store is stocked with an ever-changing selection of classic-to-modern antique furniture and home accents, plus cute accessories like handbags she picked up in Paris -"Pretty much everything I like", she says.