Tips for decorating your retro-modern home.

Hello lovelies! Today we are going to share a few of our essential decorating tips to help you create your dream retro space! Our homes have been works in progress for years now because we are always adding new things to our vintage home decor collections! Our goal when decorating our homes is to make it feel as though you have traveled backwards in time to a different era. If you are interested in creating a similar effect in your home, here are some fun tips to help you achieve that!  All of these photos were taken with the iPhone app Instagram, which we are pretty addicted to. Feel free to follow us if you aren't already! Our user names are: ohsolovelystef & ohsolovelyerin.

Alright, let's decorate!

First things first, decide on what theme or era you would like your home to be. Some fun ideas for different decades are the kitchy 50's, the mod look of the 60's, or the bohemiam look of the 70's. Once you have decided on what sort of feel you want your home to have try to stay as consistant as possible throughout your entire home. By doing this it allows you to freely move and interchange furniture and knick knacks without keeping them limited to one room. It's sometimes fun to move things around and switch them up a bit to give a room a fresh look! As far as themes for our homes go, we are both suckers for the 60's.

A great way to set the tone of a room is by creating a focal point which your eye is automatically drawn to. In my house I used this fantastic turquoise couch to give my living room a very strong mid-century look, and Erin used this adorable hand-made vintage flashcard collage as the focal point to her bedroom!  

 So many people are under the misconception that colored walls are bad because they make the room look smaller so they only stick to neutral tones. And yes, this may be the case in some rooms, however don't let this stop you from having fun with your walls! We are both firm believers in bold walls to brighten up our homes! If you are still hesitant to commit to making such a big change, a good way to ease into using color is to have one accent wall and leave the rest a soft white or cream tone. The color is less overwhelming this way but still gives an effective punch! This also allows you to have fun with furniture and buy pieces with multi-colored prints to brighten up your room too!

We all have those favorite little trinkets that we have accumulated over the years that just sit in a box or on top of our bedroom dressers. A fun way to display these is simply by hanging some shelves. Try to hang them in more unexpected places, like in your kitchen or in your bathroom. It's always fun to see cute little displays pop up when you least expect them! A good way to fill up your shelf is by using cute filler items. We like to use vintage floral trays & little vases of plastic flowers. Keep in mind that just because the shelf is in the kitchen, doesn't mean that it is only meant for kitchenware. Mix in some cute planters and figurines too!

Trying to furnish your entire home strictly from a specific era can become quite tricky, so what we like to do is mix the old with new. In these photos we both used new shelving units to hold our favorite vintage treasures! I also surrounded my shelving unit with other vintage pieces, such as my danish teak dining room table and hanging chair, and Erin put her adorable vintage hutch full of clocks beside her shelf.

After you give your walls a fresh coat of paint, hang some fun wall art! Figure out what style of art you like and try to put splashes of it in every room. We're not saying to just limit yourself to one type of art, but try to pick pieces with a consistant feel (ex: wood, metal, prints, etc...) Erin's walls are full of cute prints and mine are full of 60's wood & metal art.

Don't just rely on overhead lighting, fill your room with different types of lamps! A good thing to remember is that using low wattage light bulbs is not only energy efficient, but it also gives off a nice dim light which creates a relaxing mood in the room!

We hope this inspires you to give your space a little face-lift just in time for fall! Happy decorating!

Stef & Erin xo