How to Go Vintage Eclectic on a Budget?

Answer 1

Vintage Living Room Design

The best resources for decorating a room with a vintage, eclectic decor are garage sales, thrift stores and flea markets. Vintage simply means that a piece harkens to an earlier era, such as the 1980's or the 1950's. Eclectic means that there's no one style that's being adhered to, and that anything goes; an antique Turkish rug can be paired with a plastic 1970's chair or an elaborate crystal chandelier with a very modern couch. Eclectic is the easiest way to decorate because the whole idea is to combine things you love into one cohesive space. It's also the cheapest way to decorate, because the best places to find items for eclectic decor are the places where everything is cheap to begin with.

To make such blatantly different styles of furniture and trappings work seamlessly together, there needs to be some uniting feature. The easiest feature to use for combining styles is color. For example, you can take a very sleek 1960's couch and pair it with wingback chairs, but if the colors clash, so will the room. If the couch is black, reupholster the chairs in white and throw black-patterned pillows on them.

The key to eclectic success is to find things you absolutely love and tweak them to fit the room. Buy nine completely different frames at the thrift store--wood, metal, simple, ornate--and spray paint them all with glossy enamel paint, and suddenly you have an extremely beautiful set of frames that don't match, exactly, but they create a feeling that you can't get with store-bought ready-to-use frames.

Don't be afraid to paint or otherwise alter furniture and other items that you already have. Just because it was expensive when you bought it new doesn't mean you can't change it to make it better. So sand those end tables and paint them a wacky lime green, and mosaic with colorful glass tiles the base of the modern square lamp your sister gave you. Be fearless!