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Adding vintage elements to your home can give it a retro feel even if it's newly built. The larger the element, the more design impact it will have - replacing all your interior doors with vintage split stable doors, for example, will completely change the look of your space. You don't have to go with authentic vintage if it proves too expensive: Plenty of companies specialize in producing new furniture, fittings, fixtures, wallpaper and floor treatments that resemble beloved products of years past.
Vintage Appliances
- Vintage appliances are one way to give a kitchen a dose of classic style. Certain models of stoves and refrigerators are prized by antique dealers: Many sell gorgeous, glossy white Wedgewood stoves, which were popular from 1930 to the late 1950s.
Often, dealers will restore these stoves before selling them; unrestored stoves are cheaper to buy but may require lots of work. They cost more than modern cooking ranges; a restored vintage stove can set you back $6,000 or more, while a no-frills new range costs around $600. You can also buy restored vintage fridges, such as Kelvinators, 1950s Frigidaires and Hotpoints. These refrigerators are very stylish, often coming in pastel colors with curved chrome handles and logos that look like they belong on old Cadillacs. They can be very expensive, sometimes costing upwards of $10,000, but they do add the perfect touch of '50s-style glamor to your kitchen.
Faux Vintage
- You don't have to find authentic vintage fixtures, fittings or furniture to create a vintage look: You can fake it. Distress your furniture to give it the charm of an old piece. Use a technique called frottage, or rubbing, to make a wooden piece look like it came straight from a 19th century farmhouse. After you've painted the piece, you then rub colored glaze onto it with pieces of crumpled newspaper, which will create an uneven stippling effect on the wood, as if the paint is old and weathered.
Another way to achieve a faux-vintage look is to mimic it with new materials: Do up your kitchen floor like they did in the 1960s, with black-and-white or color-flecked vinyl tile squares, but skip trying to find original vinyl. Several manufacturers sell a new product that looks just like the old.
Vintage Doors and Windows
- Using salvaged doors and windows can give your home a vintage feel, whether or not the house was built in the same time frame as the doors or windows were created. Visit an architectural salvage store to find different styles of doors and windows. You can go with one style for several fittings, such as wood Mission doors and stained-glass Mission windows, or tall, narrow Victorian double doors and arched Victorian windows.
You can also mix your vintage styles. At architectural salvage stores, not only can you find great vintage pieces, but you're also being ecologically conscious by choosing to reuse building and decorating materials.
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Τρίτη 26 Απριλίου 2011
Vintage Ideas for Home Improvement
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