How to give your home a retro edge
The retro look is in, and if after seeing stunning photographs of homes filled with retro clocks, lampshades and furniture around sites like Pinterest, Instagram and Tumblr, you’ve decided to go for that retro look yourself for your own home, Lukehurst can help. Let’s get started.
Before anything, we’d suggest taking a look around websites such as colourlovers, to find a colour scheme that appeals to you. Choosing the right colour is absolutely vital in perfecting the retro edge you’re after, so it’s also helpful to look around websites like Pinterest for inspiration.
Dressing your walls, windows and floors
Once you’ve chosen a colour scheme, you’ll need to start thinking about how you’ll be dressing your floors, windows and walls. Are you going to have wooden, tiled or carpet flooring? Carpet can create a homey feel. Tiled flooring is more appropriate for kitchens and bathrooms, and wooden offers a classic, chic look that can give a retro edge to a room, especially if you go for parquet flooring.
Will you be dressing your windows with curtains or blinds? Blinds offer a professional, modern and formal look, whereas curtains provide a homey, retro look. But of course, it depends on what furniture you’ll have in the room, the colour scheme and what kind of curtain/blind you go for. Blinds can actually offer a retro look if you match them with the correct furnishings. For help designing your perfect window dressings, speak to our specialist soft furnishings team in our Rainham store.
As for your walls, are you going to hang any paintings, tapestry or photos? When framed properly, photos can add a homey, retro look. Paintings certainly add a touch of sophistication and class. Tapestry can also be great, but only if it’s suitable for the rest of the room.
Now, you have a rough idea for what the room is going to look like. To complete the room, you need to think about how you are going to match your colour scheme. You could spruce it up a bit with some patterns and prints. There are many designs to choose from that offer a retro aesthetic, such as birds, flowers and stripes. Whether you add this to your walls with wallpaper, or perhaps with canvas prints or wall hangings; you can certainly continue the theme through to your living room with patterned arm chairs and sofas.
Furniture
If a patterned sofa isn’t for you, why don’t you grab a velvet one to get the perfect vintage appeal for your room. Combined with a matching chair and wooden TV stand and you’re onto a winner. Velvet isn’t for everyone though, so an alternative could be leather.
There are many brands out there that have collections specifically tailored to give customers retro furnishings. For example, we stock many soft furnishings from G Plan, who have a whole range full of retro pieces that are perfect to complete the look for your home.
Wooden desks are great for adding a touch of retro to your home. Go for a dark pine desk, to match the existing furniture. If it’s a for your bedroom, be sure to match it with a bedside table.
Accessories
Talking of the bedroom, a tall work lamp to hang over the side of the bed will add a great touch of retro, and you could get a matching, smaller version for your desk. To complete your new lamp theme, you could have some scattered across the home with vintage lampshades.
Another subtlety that is great for adding a retro look, is your phone. You know those old vintage dial telephones you see in old films? Add one of those, and above your telephone make room for a large mirror to add a majestic appeal.
Still not enough to satisfy your retro needs? Try retro toasters, rugs and clocks.
- 1st March 2015
Follow Us on social
