Furniture: Bringing Antique Eye-Candy in Your Home

Industrial style in home design and décor is so trending right now: from your front door entrance to the bathroom – everything is old metal, exposed pipes, a lot of vintage hardwood pieces and a lot of colours like dark grey, black and all earthy tones. It seems like turning to the past and to the beginnings of the industrial revolution when everything was old and rusty but so durable has found it’s way into every pore of modern life. You can see the industrial/vintage style influence even in the clothing fashion as well as in home decorations.

And while those of you who are looking for a new place or thinking about moving, have a golden opportunity to design their place in industrial style from scratch. Those of you who already have a place of their own can also do something to add a dose of the industrial charm by carefully placing certain pieces of antique style furniture which have that old, worn look that industrial designs praise upon. Here are my most favourite ones.

A vintage coffee table

The coffee table is the centre piece in a room. It’s almost always positioned in the middle of the room, connecting the sofas, the rug underneath and the TV unit – a classic living room furniture layout. You can’t really stray too much from it though, it’s just too practical. And since the coffee table is a centre piece and a focal point, it can easily lead the style direction. From the vast choice of sizes, shapes and colours in antique style furniture shops, get one made of hardwood in a shade between the natural wood colour and a nuance of grey, so that it looks like it’s made of old, used wood. The table can have metal legs, or even fancier, wheels. You can put glass on top of it if you find it more convenient and if the rest of the furniture allows you to. You can place a metal or a wooden tray in the middle of the table which will also emit the spirit of old.

A sideboard

Sideboards can have a lot of uses due to their compact design. They can be storage options, can serve a decorative purpose in a room or a hallway, and they can definitely be used as a surface to change diapers on in a baby’s room (they have a wide, flat surface on which you can place a diaper changing mat and drawers beneath for storing the diapers!). Talking particularly about their decor purpose, let me just say: it’s huge. To explain how huge, I’ll just mention the fact that pointless clutter and eye-soaring mess in an industrial home have no place. You’d have very few stuff and everything would have a purpose and use. Which means, it must have its place in the house. So, a sideboard, whether it’s a large one or smaller but taller, would be used to fill an odd empty space in a room, providing you with storage at the same time. Ergo, you should definitely own one.

A cabinet

A large cabinet would definitely give the space the needed industrial scent. It’s a tall, colourful style element which will definitely make a difference in the whole picture, especially if the room you want to put it in already has a colour direction. For example, if your living room is in greyish nuances, a large cabinet with an oldish blue colour would break the grey monotony and also give the room the feeling of vintage. You can fill it with glassware, picture frames or whatever you think of as a decoration. Since the cabinet would be in a light nuance, it would be great to add a few pillows on the sofas in the same colour; you’ll get a perfect design harmony.