Decorating with Old Furniture in a Fresh Way

Among the rites of passage into adulthood is the day when your parents sell your childhood home and all the “stuff” they had been storing for you gets moved into your garage. For me, this included the obligatory boxes of photo albums and yearbooks, Cabbage Patch dolls, and notes my best friend and I wrote to each other in the 9th grade. Some things went right back into storage. But what to do about the furniture? Would my childhood bed really fit into my grown-up home?

Decorating with “old” (or antique or vintage) furniture can be tricky. There are definite pros to using hand-me-down furniture. First and foremost, it’s free. Plus, older furniture is usually made of real wood with finer craftsmanship and more character than what we see in stores today.

But what if grandma’s dining chairs just don’t fit your current design style?

Should your obligation to maintain a piece of family history outweigh the joy of seeing your home styled to your liking? I think the answer is “No.” But, you can take a cue from Tim Gunn and “make it work.”

I used a number of antique pieces in our guest room and gathered some ideas on how you can incorporate older furniture into your home in a fresh way:

#1:  Makeover the furniture with paint or new upholstery

My childhood bed was a white four-poster bed with Jenny Lind-style spindles. It was also my mother’s childhood bed. After spending 15 years in storage (including a few in my garage, which flooded twice), the bed was in rough shape. But, my dream was always to have a house with a guest room where I could use my old bed. When that finally happened, I decided to clean up the bed and give it a modern look with dark blue paint.

With the help of my mother-in-law and some chalk paint, my old bed had a new lease on life. I also painted the matching nightstand, but I switched out the dated yellow brass drawer pull for a brushed silver cup pull.

I also revamped an old chair that I found on the side of the road. Although it was dark brown with magenta and yellow floral fabric on the seat, I loved the chair’s silhouette. I painted the chair with white chalk paint, distressed it a bit, and switched out the fabric on the seat with a chic blue and green pattern. Just unscrewed the old seat, tore off the old fabric, and stapled on the new fabric.  This is a simple and inexpensive way to update older dining room chairs.

#2: Give the piece a new purpose

One of my favorite “hand me down” pieces of furniture is a sweet little chair that my father gave to my grandmother for Mother’s Day in 1968. It was from a furniture factory in Massachusetts where my dad worked during college. For decades, it sat in the corner of my grammie’s living room and, eventually, it ended up in mine.

Guests to my various apartments and homes over the years can attest that it is not the most comfortable chair, but it has a lot of meaning to me. So, in our new home, I decided to give the little chair a new purpose. It used to have a loose cushion that tied to the back of the seat, with a red floral design. I took off the cushion, stacked up some books to give it height, and it now acts as a second night stand in our guest room.

So, think outside the box and consider what new purpose your old furniture could serve. Could a coffee table become a bench? Could a desk become a kitchen island?  Could a vintage door become a table top?

#3: Mix in modern elements 

To balance the more traditional elements of antique or vintage furniture, add accessories with clean modern designs. For the bed, I used a simple white channel-stitched quilt with pom pom fringe. To add a pop of color, I tossed on a beautiful silk pillow with a watercolor print that has an updated vintage feel. Imagine this bed with a floral Laura Ashley-esque quilt:  we’d be right back in my childhood.

#4:  Incorporate current design trends

Identify some current design trends that you’ve seen in magazines, Instagram, or Pinterest. They will serve as a modern counterpoint to antique furniture. For example, I tried out the “basket wall” trend above the bed. I found some baskets at a local thrift store for a few dollars and hung them on nails. (Tip: Lay out the baskets on the floor first until you get the pattern you like, then replicate it on the wall.) Seriously, so easy and inexpensive. And, when I get tired of this look and want to try something new in that space, it’ll be an easy switch.

I also created simple typography art – another design trend – using lyrics from one of my favorite Paul Simon songs for the wall next to the bed.

#5:  Appreciate the sentimentality

Finally, sometimes you don’t have to do anything, but just appreciate the furniture for what it means to you. There are some pieces that – even if they don’t exactly fit into your current design aesthetic – will make you happy each time you see them because of the special meaning they hold. For me, it’s my grammie’s hope chest. I believe she received The Lane Company cedar chest around Christmas of 1936, when she was 23 years old. It still has a beautiful cedar aroma inside. When I open it today, I like to think that I’m smelling the same scent she smelled over 80 years ago.

Now, it’s in our guest room, and it’s where I store my wedding dress, along with my mother’s wedding dress, and a pink afghan that my grammie knitted for me when I was a little girl. There are some scratches on top of the chest and part of the wood veneer is peeling, so I draped an afghan on that corner. It’s the last afghan that my grammie made for me before she passed.

I’m sure my design style will continue to change and evolve in the upcoming years. But, I feel certain that this piece will always have a home. I hope these tips help you find a home for your “old” furniture as well!