Shop and Style Vintage Décor

How To Shop and Style Vintage Décor in Your Home

Hello Design Lovers, I’m so excited because I am explaining how to shop for and style vintage décor in your home like a designer. I will provide my go-to tips when shopping at vintage and antique stores. I’ll also teach you how to style those pieces in your home to get the designer look. 

Hunting for and decorating with vintage finds is one of my favorite ways to bring character, soul, and personality to a room. Some of the most treasured items in my home are vintage and antique pieces. 

They are an everyday reminder of the fun times I’ve spent scouring at vintage and antique shops all over the world. First, I want to quickly demystify what classifies an item as vintage, antique, or retro. 

A vintage item is anywhere from 20 to 99 years old and generally embodies the style of the decade it came from. An antique piece must be at least 100 years old, so generally much older than Vintage pieces. Lastly, a retro decor item may actually not be old at all. It could be a new item that evokes styles of the past. 

When shopping for vintage or antique pieces, I like to search for items that have visible age and natural patina. You can’t get these characteristics in a newly made item. 

Sourcing Vintage and Antique items

I went to one of my favorite local shops and want to explain what to look for when shopping for vintage and antique pieces.

While shopping, you have to keep your eyes open. A lot of times, these shops are filled to the brim with treasures. Sometimes I go in knowing what I want, but oftentimes, it’s good to go in with an open mind and let your eyes find something beautiful.

Another tip when shopping is to look for items that are the same material, shape, or color so that you can group them together as a collection in your home. Also, keep your eye open for beautiful antique books. They are such a treasure and add so much depth to a room. The main goal is to find pieces that speak to you and make your heart happy.

How to style your home with your antique finds

One of the things I like to do when styling my home is to rotate my collection every so often. I find it very therapeutic, and it fuels my creativity. You can do it every few weeks or seasonally, whatever floats your boat.

Whenever I get ready to rotate items or add new pieces, I take my collection and lay it all out on my dining table. Then I group them together by color so it makes it easier to see how things may look together.

I’m going to explain how I styled different areas of my home with my vintage collection. I hope this inspires you to get creative when styling your vintage decor in your home.

The first place I styled is the coffee table in my great room. You always want to start with foundational pieces. It often helps to group items on top of a tray or platter to make something look cohesive. I like to start off by using a tray, a stack of books, and a stone block. I then used the vintage pieces with rust/umber undertones. They coordinate with other elements that I have going on in this room already.

When doing a tablescape, start in the center to create a focal point, and oftentimes, that will be the tallest item on the table. You want to keep your colored pieces spread out so that your eye travel across the table. That also helps to keep everything feeling balanced. The last thing to do is add some easy stems or flowers to your vases to tie them all together.

The next location in my home that I styled is the entry table. I started with those foundational pieces that I mentioned before. I stacked some modern design books and added the bangle vase from my home furnishings collection with maple branches and a marble block. Because the table is black, adding the pops of white make the tablescape more modern and tie into the rest of the room.

I added my green vintage accessories into this space. I placed a vase and two little trinkets on top of the books. Then put a dark ceramic bowl on top of the marble block to buffer between the dark table and the bowl. The last thing I placed was a little ceramic bowl in front of all the other items.

I love how the pieces are all different materials but still coordinate because of the colors. This is a beautiful and easy way to group a collection of vintage and modern pieces to make an artful statement.

The next place I styled is the second coffee table in my great room. I love this coffee table as an example of styling because it is round. A lot of us have round coffee tables. They’re functional and practical and great for a seating area. I used the black and graphite vintage decor pieces because they pop against the light oak finish on the table. Again, I started with white books to tie together the other white elements in the room.

I placed a tall graphite vase off-center and a large platter opposite of the vase. I then added some awesome marble and ceramic pieces on top of the books. The very last thing used to complete the tablescape is greenery. I used some jasmine from our yard; it has a beautiful whispy look to it. This ties everything together to give an organic quality to the space.

The final space I styled with vintage accessories is the built-ins in our kitchen. The foundational pieces I used to start the styling process include framed art, vintage books, wooden risers of various heights, and a ceramic piece from my furnishings collection.

I used the blue vintage decor pieces for these shelves. I added vases, baskets, and ceramics to create movement for the eye through the height of the items. And, of course, I added some small greenery branches for spring to complete the final look.

When styling your home, let it be an outlet for you to express yourself. Move things around and try out options until you find an arrangement that makes you happy. It is such a fun way to be creative in your space.

I hope today’s post helps you feel more confident when shopping for vintage and antique decor pieces and bringing them home to style them in a gorgeous, artful way.

Shop these items I used to style in my home:

If you loved this post, check out the YouTube video below to see me shop and style each space one step at a time.

How to Shop For and Style Vintage Decor in Your Home YouTube Video

As always, thank you for reading, and remember, good design is for everyone. So create a home that inspires your, have fun decorating your home with vintage and antique pieces, and fall in love with where your live, one room at a time.

XO, Ashley