Descending into the basement of How Bizarre Thrift feels like digging through someone's cool clothes closet and revisiting grandma's living room in 1995.  

Through racks of curated vintage T-shirts and pants at the Columbia Falls shop, customers won't find high mark-ups on familiar brand names. Instead, they'll find owner Mikayla Gildart fine-tuning her new thrift and oddity store, which she hopes will become a way to give old items a new life.  

"Thrifting has always been a fun and happy experience for me. Over the years, I've felt a strong pull to create a space for the community that felt exciting and welcoming to everyone," Gildart said.  

The new store, near the intersection of Nucleus Avenue and U.S. 2, is the product of years of collecting interesting items and creating connections throughout the community. She runs the store alongside her partner Micah Sperry, her sister Amber Gildart, and her close friends Charlie DiBono and Elena Knox-Oliver.  

Gildart has always been an avid thrifter, finding treasures by combing through bins and visiting secondhand stores in nearby states. As a former housekeeper, she has also been given a lot of items. 

One side of the store is clothes, shoes and accessories, while the other is home goods, kitchenware, crafting supplies and miscellaneous items. There is also a plant room, where her sister Amber takes in ailing houseplants and sells starters, pots and plant food — complete with a custom soil mix station.  

"All the plants she has propagated and grown herself. Every single plant that gets sold has her own soil mixture. She makes a plant spray and we've got a refillable station for that. And then she's been collecting these pots for years," Gildart said.  

Gildart started selling her collection of items at the Flathead County Fairgrounds flea markets after seeing a post on social media from an organizer looking for more vendors. They brought two canopy tents' worth of merchandise for her first pop-up and received a lot of great feedback on her selection and pricing.  

"Then my friend Charlie hand-drew my logo, which has a hermit crab and a watering can on it. So, the second that we had that and this official-looking branding, I was like, 'this could be real,'" Gildart said.  

The hermit crab symbolizes the spirit of reusing and recycling, because they are "happy in whatever shell they find," according to Sperry. 

Gildart's second pop-up required "all hands on deck" with three canopies of items and a photoshoot area. From then on, she knew she was collecting items for a future store of her own.  

But it was tough to find a rentable commercial space without putting down thousands of dollars at the get-go. She sleuthed spaces throughout the Flathead Valley, so she took to a Facebook group and asked if anyone had a rentable space within her price range. Soon she heard from the owners of the Gateway Building, who offered the basement space.  

To determine her pricing, she looked at thrift stores in the valley and listened to opinions, then "basically chose to do the opposite of what a lot of the thrift stores are doing," she said.  

While some stores price items based on a value they see online, Gildart said she "doesn't care about the reseller." If an item is vintage or antique, she will look it up online and see what others are selling it for, then mark it down by half or a quarter of the cost.   

"So if a nice T-shirt comes in and it's got a cool print on it, it's $3. If it's designer and is very good quality, it's $3 to $5. It still probably will be $3 because at the end of the day it's a shirt. So, I also feel like people will be able to get more out of what they are spending," she said.  

There are some items that fall outside of this pricing model, like the plants and work from local artists, which line the walls of the store. Gildart said 100% of the profit from those sales goes directly back to the artist. As her operation grows, she wants to one day host arts and crafts nights for the community.  

How Bizarre is taking donations, with the benefit of giving out a 20% off coupon to those who choose to drop off items. A similar coupon is offered for plants, which is given when someone brings in an ailing plant for her sister to nurse back to health.  

Gildart said she is passionate about finding a home for whatever comes their way, including taking kitchenware and linens to the Abbie Shelter and old towels to animal shelters.  

"I have running lists in my head of every organization asking for stuff they need, like if Abbie Shelter posts on their Facebook that they desperately need curtains, I'm putting together a bag of curtains and making sure that they get them," she said.  

How Bizarre Thrift is located at 6 Ninth St. E. in Columbia Falls. To learn more, visit the store's social media pages at @HowBizarreThrift.  

Reporter Taylor Inman can be reached at 406-758-4440 or [email protected]. If you value local journalism, pledge your support at dailyinterlake.com/support.  

    An assortment of mugs at How Bizarre Thrift inside the Gateway Building in Columbia Falls on Wednesday, Oct. 28. (Casey Kreider/Daily Inter Lake)
 Casey Kreider   

    The plant room inside How Bizarre Thrift in the Gateway Building in Columbia Falls on Wednesday, Oct. 28. (Casey Kreider/Daily Inter Lake)
 Casey Kreider   

    Cody Bauer, owner of Coyote, shops for vintage items for his store on Nucleus Avenue at How Bizarre Thrift in Columbia Falls on Wednesday, Oct. 28. (Casey Kreider/Daily Inter Lake)
 Casey Kreider   

    Mikayla Gildart and Micah Sperry at How Bizarre Thrift inside the Gateway Building in Columbia Falls on Wednesday, Oct. 28. (Casey Kreider/Daily Inter Lake)
 Casey Kreider