Vintage Interior Design Style

A cozy, elegant, romantic – vintage interior design style of apartments, houses, offices, or shops is restraint, elegance, and atmosphere of antiquity, pleasant and as if familiar for a long time.

Contents:

• What is vintage interior style?
• Vintage features
• A short history of this style
• Modern vintage interior
• Living room
• Choosing furniture

What is Vintage Interior Design Style?

Vintage style in the interior of the apartment, office, or home is:

• Low-key colors: primary colors – beige, gray, sand, cream. Some shades of light pink, pale blue, and pale lilac will be appropriate. The vintage interior welcomes the creation of a single color gamma – bright, noble, calm.
• Vintage interior design is old-fashioned and elegant. It involves the use of old or artificially aged furniture and decor.
• Vintage welcomes natural materials: wood, more rarely stone and forged elements, and natural fabrics. The interior should look as if it was designed several decades ago. It should reflect the fashion trends of the past decades. The most common, which became a classic, the option is things older than 30 and younger than 60 years.
• This style is called romantic: soft, flowing lines, elegant colors, lovingly selected furniture and decor, as if inherited from grandparents – not junk, but the legacy.
• The room design in Vintage style looks simple (it does not have the classic chic styles, exotic oriental beauty catchy, or modern) and gracefully at the same time. Abrasion, cracks, and chips give an atmosphere and a comfortable lived-in look, creating an atmosphere of peace, relaxation, and nostalgia.
• This style combines old and modern things. There are only “character” (with a special history, original, recognizable and unusual) things used for the creation of such an interior.

Vintage interior for modern home design is for those who appreciate the elegant simplicity of old things from antique furniture to cute trinkets bought at the beginning of the last century. This is the charm of old-fashioned furniture and knick-knacks, the harmony of space and light, and clever design because the apartment, house, or room should be beautiful and stylish, but not overloaded and cluttered.

Vintage Features

Furniture

Furniture in Vintage style is furniture with history. Really old antique or simulated, it must meet several criteria:

• Only natural materials: wood and upholstery fabrics;
• The texture is important: there is no need to grind wood pieces to complete smoothness;
• Scrapes, scratches, and cracks will look organically;
• Forged elements, wood carving, and bronze or brass fittings are also relevant;
• Vintage furniture – it`s a wardrobe, bedside tables, and coffee tables with drawers and carved handles. It is a soft chair and sofa with a wooden frame and rounded carved legs. It is a high-backed chair and a massive dining table; a massive bed with carved or forged back.

Textile

• Curtains in vintage style are long and gracefully draped. They can be decorated with cords or corresponding clips. They can be quite bright or subdued, depending on the overall interior design: plain walls – bright curtains, and vice versa. Curtains can be decorated with a floral design or be monophonic as well.
• Decorative lace napkins will look organically on the table and bedside tables.
• Upholstery either fits the background or is a little brighter. Furniture with floral upholstery is quite appropriate in a room with shadeless walls.
• The Interior is harmoniously complemented by the decorative pillows with floral patterns and discreet carpet.

Finishing and Decor

• Wall decorating can be of two types: plain low-key tone wallpaper or wallpaper with a catchy enough floral pattern.
• The ceiling may be white (plaster) with subtle roughness or wood with cracks and scratches. Stucco will look quite organically at the stucco ceiling.
• A wooden floor is preferable. Linoleum must be necessarily hidden under a big carpet to match the wallpaper.
• Walls can be decorated with black and white photographs. Ornamentations and paintings in the Vintage style in elegant wooden carved frames would suffice.
• Decoration in Vintage style is impossible without flowers (both as a pattern, and natural). They can be disposed of in the rooms in ceramic or glass vases. Potted plants will be appropriate too.
• The vintage stuff (music boxes, antique clocks, old-fashioned lamps and chandeliers, hair combs, candlesticks, vases, books, frames, figurines) will help to create a special atmosphere.
• All this can be bought at a flea market, antique shop, or found at elderly relatives’ or friends’ homes.
• Boxes, book covers, and even drawers or cabinet doors can be decorated with decoupage in Vintage style – light, delicate, black-and-white or light brown pictures (flowers, dragonflies, animals, children) or newspaper clippings, labels, badges with traces of wear, cracks.
• A large mirror in a massive, elaborated frame will complement and refresh any room. It can be placed on the pier glass in the bedroom, on the mantel in the living room, above the sink in the bathroom, and on the wall in the kitchen.

The History of the Emergence of Style

This style is not accidentally characterized as “seasoned.” After all, the word “vintage” comes from winemaking, where it was referred to as “the wine of the highest quality”, “long-term exposure wine” – seasoned, expensive, special.

This style originated quite spontaneously first in the arts (music) and fashion, and then in the field of interior design. Vintage entered fashion in the 90s of the XX century and immediately captured America and the majority of European countries.

The essence of this style is to appeal to the original thing of the past years, which reflects the fashion interior trends of that period and is recognizable. Vintage interior style does not have any clear rules of space arrangement. It’s more the stylistic direction than style: vintage interior style aims to demonstrate the special charm of the previous era and create a cozy atmosphere, combining antique, aged, and modern furniture and decor.

– It is believed that Vintage consists of things that are not younger than 30 and not older than 60 years, and the Retro style is about things created in the first half of the XX century. This is a fairly conventional division that came from the world of fashion.

The discreet charm of low-key colors and archaic motifs unites the Vintage interior with the style of Provence (a French country style): old-fashioned furniture, pastel colors, and natural materials. However, there are some differences: for example, Provence, tends to complement a nautical theme and images of roosters (the symbol of France).

Modern Vintage Interior

Vintage interior is the simplicity and refinement, beauty and convenience, comfort, and elegance.

• Vintage style in the interior of the house means comfort, peace, regularity, and a sense of proportion.
• Vintage style in the interior of the kitchen is a streamlined shape, old-fashioned household appliances and wooden table and chairs, a spacious cupboard with glass doors, plenty of cozy textiles (potholders, napkins), and ceramic details (bowls, plates).
• Living in vintage style – it is elegance and simplicity, old-fashioned and restrained colors, wrought iron lamps and chandeliers, a bookcase with open or glass shelves, pictures, or photos in gilded frames; antique furniture, luxurious and understated at the same time.
• Bedroom in vintage interior style – it’s comfort and luxury, elegance, and bright shades. Massive bed (possibly with a canopy), dressing table with mirror, decorative pillows, ceramic vases, figurines, crystal vases and perfume bottles, candle holders, jewelry boxes, and cosmetics. Vintage bedroom design is a competent combination of old-fashioned luxury and modern comfort, elegance, and unobtrusive simplicity.

The vintage-style apartment is cozy and beautiful. However, this style is appropriate not only in the living quarters. Store design in Vintage style – romantic, respectable, elegant – can be ordered for furniture, clothing, and accessories shops.

Office in a Vintage interior design style would suit the company, which sells antiques. This style is ideal for office managers of companies whose activities are related to travel, sales of luxury buildings or old vintage cars, etc.

Real Examples in the Interior: Vintage Living Room

When creating a living room in a vintage style, it is important to keep everything in the same stylistic direction of the decade you have chosen. If you want to put, for example, a leather sofa with a high back that was in vogue in the 30s, then the rest of the interior should also be matched to the style of the same 30s. If you like the plastic décor of the bright rich colors of the 70s, then, accordingly, the rest should also be combined with the direction of that era.

It is customary to choose the general color of a living room in a vintage style in soft muted shades, but it would not be a mistake to complement it with bright decor, for example, plastic in juicy colors, pop art style posters. The most suitable colors for a vintage living room are white, dull pink, beige, pale purple, pale blue, light green, soft yellow, and orange. A brown and gray palette can be a wonderful shading contrast. Although the vintage style does not like sharp contrast in the living room, it is better to use one color for the background, and complement it with similar shades.

Wallpaper with a floral pattern, with the image of birds, and butterflies can look organic.

A fireplace in a vintage living room will look very elegant; this attribute will certainly give the look of your room in the style of the old era. Above the fireplace, you can attach a shelf for vintage souvenirs. The brick and stone from which the fireplace is made look very beautiful and old-fashioned, and if you supplement its texture with an originally forged grate, then the spirit of antiquity will envelop both you and your guests. And put a rocking chair in front of the fireplace, this will harmoniously complement the style.

You can also place an old sideboard in the living room or order a new one, but a semi-antique one. Be sure to place some old grandmother’s service or something like that in it. The chandelier should be old, metal, and large. Chandeliers with candle-shaped shades are perfect. The walls can be decorated with paintings in gilded frames.

Furniture and textiles can be decorated with eye-catching geometric patterns. Also, old household items that were not previously remarkable can serve as original decor elements. But now they can give your living room a sophisticated and natural vintage style. Such items can be: an old Singer sewing machine, a samovar placed on a white tablecloth, and next to it old cups and saucers, as it was before, in ancient times. The grand piano will perfectly fit into such a living room, which can be really antique or faux antique, it will create a stunning effect of the vintage of the room, and playing the piano is always beautiful.

Choosing Vintage Furniture

The main feature of vintage furniture is its “wear and tear”, “worn out”. If you have real vintage items, be it an old chest, a chest of drawers, a shabby leather armchair, a sideboard, and so on, then you just need to correctly and organically fit them into the interior and already adjust the rest of the design to these things. But if you do not have vintage furniture and there is no place to buy it, then you can order or buy new, but semi-antique. Once again, pay attention to the fact that the item that you acquire should not only be made in the style of a bygone era but must have a very “worn out” look, this makes the thing vintage. Antique furniture will fill your life with a special aura of mystery, and sophistication, giving a feeling of durability and unhurriedness.

Nowadays, there is a huge number of technologies that can make, for example, an ordinary stool, an old shabby door, or a shabby sideboard, a unique antique item. Here are several such techniques: painting of various types, vintage decoupage – this is when pictures are cut out of paper and pasted onto objects. There is also craquelure, that is, the effect of cracks, shabby (creating a look of scuffing). It is not necessary to address this question to professionals, you can master these techniques yourself. You can put a noble mark of aging on your walls, clocks, vases, furniture, and figurines to give the room a vintage style.

Even an ordinary rustic table, which was made of planks, can be attributed to the vintage style, you can not process it at all and then its beautiful wooden texture will set the style. Or you can trim it slightly with sandpaper, stain, put a copper candlestick or lace tablecloth, which is knitted by hand, and then the era of antiquity will already come to your room.

Once again, let’s pay attention to the fact that the vintage style loves symmetry, for example, put a sofa in one part of the room and the same floor lamps on both sides of the armchair. If you have a fireplace, then two identical armchairs or rocking chairs will look good next to it, which is more related to vintage style and reflects the old era. By the way, symmetry also visually lengthens the room, making it seem wider. And light shades give the room a spacious look.