Photo: Chris A Dorsey

The fashion runways are filled with it, interior designers are all talking about it, and home décor shop windows are crammed with it – vintage industrial style is HOT for 2016! This quirky style blends a mixture of vintage, rustic, and industrial elements. Designers are making over homes in muted tones, using vintage décor accessories and topping off the look with industrial furniture. To get this look, follow our lead:

Use Everything Vintage – But From an Industrial Setting

Industrial chic is one of the best ways to describe this emerging trend, and it is loaded with metal and wood furniture, stone flooring, and even brick walls. This is the perfect decorating style for a loft apartment, condo, or townhouse. The reason why it’s gaining popularity? Designers are encouraging people to experiment with vintage – it’s not all about shabby chic! Lighting, flooring, and industrial vintage furniture that once would have only been seen in an industrial setting are now being used in homes around the globe.

Copper Lighting, Lanterns, Glass…

Using the right type of lighting has always been pivotal in achieving the right look, and ambience in your home. When it comes to vintage industrial lighting, the options are endless and there are so many possibilities! What’s really popular now are 1930’s style factory lighting and old ship’s lanterns. How cool is that? Polished steel, glass or copper are perfect in providing an immediate industrial feel to your space. Not only are they on-trend, but also practical, functional, and easy-to-clean!

Worn and Weathered Flooring

If you are looking to achieve a weathered wood look with your flooring, old industrial flooring ticks all the right boxes!

The old wooden factory floors form the industrial era suffered extensive wear and tear during their time, and have now what we call a “weathered look”. If you are lucky enough to live in an old factory that has been transformed into a trendy industrial-style loft living space, you already know how warm and cozy this flooring is!

If you want to replicate this vintage industrial look in your own home, you will need to hunt around salvage yards, online sources and flea markets or even swap meets, to see if you can acquire some of this nostalgic wooden flooring and enjoy all that it has to offer.

Walls Covered in Bricks

Fired clay brick has been a mainstream building material for centuries now, and it makes a gorgeous focal wall to create a totally industrialized space.

If your building is old enough, it may well be that you already have this prized architectural gem hidden behind an existing drywall finish. If that is not the case, it is easy to purchase old bricks and replicate this historical look.

Vintage is a decor style that simply doesn’t date. From the bath to the dining room, you can incorporate hints of vintage design no matter what your decorating style and budget. It is a welcoming style in any room in the home but it has a knack for looking particularly sumptuous and stylish in our personal hideaway – the bedroom. Step back into simpler times and follow these easy ideas you can do yourself to bring back the good old days:

Look for Unique Fabrics 

Keep your eyes peeled for fabrics with a vintage appearance. Shop around for printed cushions and bedding with an old-fashioned feel and scour your local flea market for unique material that could be used as a bed or sofa throw. You could even consider making vintage art from old fabrics i.e. wrapping the material around a wooden frame or canvas board to re-create the art deco feel of the 1920’s.

Justina Baleney

Mix and Match Accessories

Vintage style borrows from many different time periods so you can afford to be fairly relaxed with your choice of furnishings. Try not to get bogged down with symmetry and clean lines – vintage is all about creating a relaxed, ‘lived-in’ feel so whether you pick a specific era to inspire you or a general classic theme, it’s fairly easy to mix and match the decor as you go.

Styles such as shabby chic, for example, are incredibly versatile and look best used in the bedroom. You can use it to redesign any bedroom type whether you are re-styling a child’s room or an adult master bedroom. Lace curtains and worn, distressed dressing tables and mirrors achieve a romantic boudoir style in the main bedroom, while using worn and shabby chic toy chests are perfect for a 1920’s style nursery or young child’s bedroom.

Tal Goldstein

Other vintage accessories could include ornate birdcages, old typewriters, and storage ‘suitcases’ to display in an attractive set of three at the foot of the bed, or as a side table in your living room. You can save some cash and attempt your own DIY shabby chic furniture for a more genuine effect.

Green Couch Interior Design

Use Neutral and Muted Colours

Certain vintage accessories can be bold and colourful so it makes sense to keep the foundations of your vintage home fairly bare and understated to ensure they contrast well.  Keep to a delicate colour palette such as light dusky pinks, pastels and grey shades. When decorating in 1950’s vintage style for example, the odd printed cushion or vivid wall art reminiscent of the era will work best when surrounded by neutral and quiet shades.

When decorating your bedroom, vintage decor translates wonderfully but the effect can be lost immediately if you choose the wrong type of bed frame. Ensure a seamlessly classic look throughout your vintage bedroom by choosing a timeless bed frame design. Classic never goes out of style and if the focal point of your room stays true to vintage roots, the rest will fall into place.

Who doesn’t love a great DIY? There is nothing better than coming across an old piece of furniture and seeing beyond it’s cracks, dents, marks and scratches. I’ve recently checked out a few furniture repair shops and was stunned by what some new hardware, a fresh lick of paint, and some new fabric can do to an old piece of furniture! Being able to see the potential it truly holds needs the eye of an designer!

This gorgeous French country chair was given a complete makeover by my pal Jenna from the blog Rain on a Tin Roof. She gave the chair a fresh new start by reupholstering and painting it – giving it a whole new life. Check out this fabulous project:

What you Need:

– Sandpaper
– Glue Gun + Nail Gun
– Primer
– Wood Putty
– Wood Paint
– Polycrylic Top Coat
– Upholstery Sponge
– Batting
– Upholstery Fabric
– Trim

Step 1: Give it a Good Wash

Use a cloth or sponge dipped in warm water and soap and wipe down any dirt, dust, and build-up on your old chair. Make sure it dries completely before continuing onto the next step.

Step 2: Sanding

To create a smooth painting surface and to make sure your new paint with stick to your wooden chair, give it a good sanding. If your chair is covered with paint that is already chipping, use a coarse grit sandpaper to remove the paint.

Step 3: Fix Holes and Scratches

Your chair may be filled with dents and scratches from the a lot of wear and tear. After all, that’s the beauty of a vintage find – they all seem to have a long story to tell! If you can’t remove the marks using your sandpaper, use wood putty to fill in the marks and allow it to dry. When the wood putty dries completely, remove the excess by sanding it off until you get a smooth finish. Then, take a damp cloth to remove all the dust from sanding and allow it to dry.

Step 4: Get Ready to Prime

Remove the canning and fabric from the arms and get ready to prime your chair. You can use a regular wood primer and use a spray paint gun or a regular paint brush. Give the chair 1-2 coats of primer.

Step 5: Painting

Once the primer is completely dry, paint your chair your desired color (Jenna used white and thinned it out with a little water).  Apply 2-3 coats of paint and a topcoat of Polycrylic. If you are going for a lacquered finish, you may want to buy something like sheen top coats from Fenlan Product Store to give it that luxurious finish.

Step 6: Make a New Seat:

To replace the canning on the chair, measure out your seat and cut out a piece of wood that fits snug on your newly painted chair. Lay it down on your foam padding, trace around it, and cut out the foam to match the shape of your piece of wood.

Step 7: Reupholster

Cover your newly cut foam with a layer of batting to smooth out the edges and a layer of the fabric you chose for upholstering. Jenna used a gorgeous green velvet fabric – one of my faves! She topped it off with some decorative trim that she hot-glued in place at the bottom edge.

Step 8: Reupholster the Arms:

To reupholster the arms of your chair, place a layer of batting over the arms, then a layer of pre-cut green fabric. Staple it down near the edges and hot glue more trim around the edges to hide your staples.

And voila – your finished product! To make it stand out even more, add a gorgeous embroidered pillow to your chair to give it that ‘French Country Chic’ look!