The McCulley family's kitchen table looks like it cost a fortune. It's a trestle-style piece in a dark, heavy wood, with two benches. Looks like it came straight from a glossy furniture catalog.

But Heather McCulley, who lives in New London, Chester County, with her husband and three daughters, didn't select the table off a catalog page. She found it on the side of the road at Ron's Consignment in Woodbine, Cape May County.

"We were trying to avoid traffic last year on the way to the Shore and took a different route," she recalls. "I made [my husband] Matt stop, and we went back later that weekend to buy the set."

McCulley, 36, who makes and sells custom handbags through her company, Lulu Belle, got the table, the benches, two chairs and a two-piece hutch for $300.

A similar table sells at Restoration Hardware for $1,450, without benches - tangible proof that decorating with secondhand furnishings can make good economic sense.

It's also environmentally correct and getting more and more popular, whether through resale shops, Internet sales, or trash-picking at the curb.

In an April survey of its 1,000-plus member stores, the National Association of Resale and Thrift Shops said three-quarters of its members reported a jump in sales, with the average increase 30 percent.

"People want more for their money. They have to have more for their money, and they're having to be a little bit more creative on how they're spending," says Tracey True Dismukes, the group's immediate past president and the owner of three consignment shops in Birmingham, Ala.

Folks are also looking at things "they would normally put in yard sales, but now you need to . . . get some money out of what you have in your home."

Which means more items are being consigned. Which means better selection for those on the hunt, such as college students, recent grads outfitting first apartments, and the "green" crowd.

"You're fulfilling the 'reuse' part of 'reduce, reuse and recycle,' " says Leah Ingram, a New Hope eco-expert and blogger behind the Lean Green Family (www.suddenlyfrugal.blogspot.com). "You're also probably getting a great deal on furniture that, had you bought it new, would have cost way more."

Stephanie Garemore, 25, a student at Holy Family University, trolled craigslist.org to furnish her one-bedroom apartment in Northeast Philadelphia. There were so many options online, she found everything she needed in three weeks, without hitting consignment and thrift stores.

Most of the items were new or almost new, she says.

"I bought stuff that was still in the box from Ikea. People sold it . . . because the item wasn't right for the space, [or] they put it together and found it didn't fit," says Garemore, a fire science and public safety major.

Her biggest coup: a matching Ikea bedroom set and desk, only six months old, bought for $350.

Sometimes, you hardly need to spend money at all.

When Rachel Weisgerber returned from the Peace Corps and moved into an Old City apartment with her boyfriend, K.J. Brown, she started from scratch.

"We put the word out between friends and family that we were moving into a new apartment," says Weisgerber, 27. "They just gave us stuff. They never really had any reason to get rid of the furniture, but now that I needed it, it was a good excuse to get rid of it."

Their bedroom set came from a family friend who was downsizing. A couch came from a friend moving in with his girlfriend who already had a living room set. Weisgerber's mother trash-picked a rolltop desk for them. The only things the couple bought new were two Ikea dressers.

On Wednesday, the couple will leave for a one-year stint teaching English in Japan. Their furniture either will be used by other family members or go into storage.

"If, at the end, you can't afford to store it, then you can just give it away or put it back on the curb for the next curb shopper," Weisgerber says. "It's no loss financially."

If you're looking for a good mix of secondhand pieces, be patient, look around, and be prepared to invest some sweat equity.

For example, McCulley refinished her consignment-shop table and benches.

And all that Weisgerber and Brown's trash-picked baker's rack needed was a coat of black paint to make it look new. They've been using it to display items collected on their world travels.

Be flexible, McCulley suggests. She searches eBay as well as shops, because you don't always find exactly what you want - and you never know what's out there. She bought a church pew, also for her kitchen, from a convent that was closing. She had been looking for something like it for years before she was tipped off to the convent sale.

Persistence pays off in online searches, says Garemore, who spent a lot of time on craigslist. "There's about 50 to 100 posts every single day. Look until you find everything you need," she suggests.

She only inquired about listings that included a picture: "If it didn't have a photograph, it was obvious why."

Clearly, not everything used turns out to be treasure, says Kathy Peterson, author and TV design personality.

"Consignment-store owners may not know all the ins and outs of the piece, so use your eyes, looking for pet stains, and your nose for odors," Peterson says. That is especially true for anything that involves fabric, though you can reupholster if your budget allows.

With wood furniture, look for holes or wood dust, which could mean insects, and "examine at all sides of the piece, even if it means getting on the ground to look underneath," McCulley advises.

Dismukes recommends looking closely for veneers, which could mean a piece is made of pressed wood instead of solid wood. Try to pick up the furniture, she says; if it's lightweight, you've probably found a pressed-wood piece, which won't be as durable as solid wood.

Most of all, experts and experienced shoppers agree, if you like a secondhand something and the price is right, buy it. There isn't always another one to be found - which often is precisely why you want it in the first place.

"Pieces come and go every day, every hour," Dismukes says. "It's a thrill to get that piece you didn't expect to find."