Vintage effect

Play to evoke a vintage atmosphere in the rooms of our houses is a very popular trend since a few years and that is pretty much becoming a classic. But I would like to do some considerations before starting.

For the term vintage, the dictionary gives the following definition: in fashion, costumes, in taste, an object that belongs to a past era, to another time, with a particular evocative atmosphere experienced with homesickness (cited Dictionary Hoepli). So it is definitely vintage the piece of furniture from the seventies that you stole from your grandma's house and you placed in your living room.

There is then a series of furniture on the market that recall very evidently the typical design of certain periods such as, for example, the fifties for which the choice is really wide. Finally, there is a category of forniture of no recent craftmanship with interesting lines that, a touch of creativity, could make special: in fact there are many really creative artisans who choose this way to be known, proposing very interesting projects to recover and reuse. Let us see some interesting example for both cases.

Tips for a vintage furnish

Maybe I run the risk of repeating myself, but make sure that a special corner of your house does not become like the window of a curio or furnishing shop: the advice is to choose one or two elements from the original design, around which to build a furnishing project able to appraise them.

If absurdly the piece of forniture of your grandmother mentioned earlier, has special shapes or bright colors, I would choose furnitures and accessories with simple and essential lines that maybe contain sober reminders of these elements: in this way it is possible to emphasize the main furniture without the context being too heavy.

Vintage furnitures

Here is a kitchen, elegant and yet casual, embellished with references to the cozy countryside home kitchens : it is Nolita, one of the models proposed by Marchi Cucine that, following a fairly general tendency among companies in the sector, has developed an entire line of products inspired by vintage. Specifically, Nolita is composed by the central elements with slate inserts framed by fir wood properly brushed so as to accentuate a purpose-made aging. The top floors are in marble - or agglomerate marble - which is also treated with special processing techniques: Alternatively, they are offered in concrete, made with resins on support in marine glued laminated timber and worked with brushing processes, waxing and finishing.

If you think about the fifties, what comes to your mind? I imagine myself catapulted into Al's pub, where the light-hearted stories of Happy Days where taking place, the famous American television series: the furnishings inspired by that period, characterized by curved shapes and bright colors, have become a vintage classic and there are so many companies offering full collections inspired by that time.

And what could be more evocative of a juke box to be placed triumphantly in your living room? This might be an idea to give character to a space which lacks a bit of originality: Furniture Bottanelli, a company that manufactures furniture and accessories inspired by the American design of the fifties, proposes AMI Continental 1, the legendary juke box that can offer up to 200 musical selections that happen both by key and by cog: a real treat for fans.

Crafts vintage effect

As mentioned at the beginning, also because of the economic crisis, since some years now, there is a tendency to recover furniture that does not have a particular value, often changing their functionality: such recovery occurs very often by recalling elements of the past and the results are really interesting.

A great example is the work of Silvia Zacchello, decorator specialized in the recovery of furniture and vintage decor, with a particular fondness for chairs: chair Anymore, for example, as all the work of Silvia, is hand painted with acrylics and, once the decoration is done, the work is fixed with gloss varnish for parquet so as to guarantee their daily use. His favorite subjects are the works of Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Indiana, Keith Haring.

If your intent is to recover a piece of forniture of your property, which, let's face it, it is useful but really bad, you could turn to Paola Scrima, Sicilian decorator with a passion for creative recovery. One of her realization is this case in fir - portrayed in the image at the beginning of the article - transformed into an original travel trunk through the wise use of the techniques of Trompe l'Oeil and Decoupage: on her site you can follow the various processing stages through an accurate gallery of images.