How to Spice Up Your Homes Using Vintage Pieces

Some first-time homebuyers look for a beautiful place to live in, while others use their creativity and make their existing space attractive through home décor and accessories. Perfect home decor isn’t always about staying on-trend; you can get amazing design touches from timeless and flexible décor, such as vintage pieces.

Picture from Charlotte May

Vintage pieces can bring life into your space, whether they’re store-bought or DIY-ed. If done properly, old-fashioned looks won’t come off as boring but bring drama and the right amount of contrast in a room.

Here are some tips on how you can decorate your modern home with vintage pieces the right way.

Refresh the room with accent pieces

For your basic furniture or the furnishings you’ll often use (like a sofa or bed), it’s best to invest in new items. Since they’ll be in regular use, they’ll hold up much longer than antiques. Visit the thrift store and look for accent pieces instead like a big ’80s coffee table, mid-century style revival mirror, or antique-patterned rugs. 

It’s easy to get lost in decorating the living room, dining area, and bedrooms since they’re easier to transform into a more cozy home. But don’t forget to decorate the rest of the house like the kitchen, bathroom, porch, and patio. You can add antique signs, glass jars, and vases into these spaces to create warmth without taking away its modern elements.

Put in some elbow grease

Taking a trip to the vintage shop and purchasing thrift finds isn’t the only way you can incorporate vintage pieces into your space. You can revamp items you already have to make them look brand new.

 

For example, if you have a worn-out or abandoned chair, you can DIY it back to life. By reupholstering or painting the chair, it can look a lot less of a throwaway and more of something that belongs in your home. All you need is to put in a little effort, and you won’t even have to spend tons of money on an antique.

Repurpose vintage textiles

DIY projects enable you to rework an item to make it look like a newer version or turn it into something with a different purpose from its previous version. With vintage textiles, even if they’re not tattered, you can repurpose them as all sorts of decor.

Old quilts can look great as wall hangings, antique curtains can be headboard fabric, and tea towels can make quirky pillowcases. When you think outside the box, you can create out-of-the-ordinary decor that’ll bring personality into your space without dating it.

Choose one good statement piece

One statement piece is enough for most rooms, and everything to follow shall complement that item. You can get an antique kitchen island that’ll not only serve as the room’s centerpiece but also a functioning table. Then, to complement the piece, you can paint the cabinets with a bold hue, keeping modern with traditional.

Statement pieces bring whimsy into a space. The right items can make a room carefree, but the area can feel stuffy and confusing when there’s too much going on.

Don’t be afraid to mix and match

Overdecorating is an approach most decorators grapple with. Keeping your statement pieces minimal is one thing, but finding a way to complement that item is another. Don’t be scared to mix and match. When you find stuff in flea markets or antique shops, pieces won’t exactly match or come in sets. You have to put your creativity to the test and feel it out.

Items with similar styles or color schemes will naturally look good together. Pay attention to the finishes of the pieces to get hints on what will tie well together. You can have mismatched wood dressers as nightstands if they have similar finishes, identically sized vintage artworks can bring consistency if laid out properly, and antique rugs of the same color can make a space cohesive.

You can also play around with period pieces and combine antiques from different countries and eras. It may seem a bit bizarre, but there’s an opportunity for elegance. American, Swedish, and French antiques can look surprisingly classy when paired together. For example, a French Regency console below an 18th-century English mirror can make any entryway feel grand.

Don’t focus on the period

Period pieces are interesting, but you mustn’t fixate your whole home decor on them. You should add items to your home based on how it makes you feel, not when it was made. If you have to deal with furniture or decor reproductions, embrace it.

According to interior designer Anthony Baratta, “Everyone is hung up on ‘period-appropriate,’ but that’s really not how people lived then and it’s not how we live now. They get a bad rap, but the history of furniture has been fueled by them. My feeling is, if something is lovely, it’s lovely.”

You can purchase or DIY a period-inspired piece. With the right items, you can make them look like they have been in your home for decades. You don’t need a chair from the 1960s if you can purchase a similar piece that’s brand new or transform the chair you have and make it look retro.

Give Your Home a Lived-in Look

Some interior home designs are too clean-cut for others; the space feels hotel-like or laid in without the homeowner’s personality. With vintage pieces, you can make a room feel inviting and personalized. It adds a sense of history or story to your home that you don’t get from decor bought at mass-produced furniture stores.

Old furniture isn’t always bad. Sometimes, it just needs some imagination and a bit of elbow grease to find its way back into the aesthetics of your home. Incorporate modern fixtures with antique furnishings and salvaged decor to give your home a character that will never go out of style.