Colorful Vintage Living Room Before & After Tour
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It’s time to show you my vintage living room tour! I have an old home built in the 1960s and luckily I loved almost all the paint colors that were already in the house, including the living room. I added a lot of retro furniture and eclectic decorations. The interior design style bounces around a lot and I’d call it maximalist colorful cottage. Let’s get started with the tour!
My 1960s living room before photo
The living room was really empty and boring. The main thing that stuck out to me was the paint color which was a light lavender. I absolutely loved it and haven’t changed it. We kept the original carpet because it’s in good shape and there weren’t wood floors underneath. I also loved the big picture window!
After
We didn’t change much in the space except adding some furniture and filling it with love. But that makes such a difference!
The big green rainbow shelf
The most popular furniture piece in my home is my giant $25 green shelf that I decorate with rainbow decor. I wrote an entire blog post about how I found the rainbow green shelf and how I decorate it. I also decorate it differently for Halloween and Christmas!
You can watch my living room walk through below!
The pink desk
I found my pink desk at Downtown Antiques in Holland, MI which is on my Best Antique Shops of West Michigan post. It was on clearance for $75 and I LOVE the pink color. I keep my vintage blue typewriter on it that I got for Christmas from my Mom.
The house didn’t come with a fireplace
The one big thing I compromised on with this house is that it didn’t come with a fireplace. I decided to buy this electric fireplace online that had a big mantel so it felt like a real fireplace.
I’m SO glad I bought an electric fireplace I absolutely love owning one. I really enjoy decorating my fireplace mantel for every season. You can read all about my spring garden mantel and how I decorate it!
If you like my mantel garland you can buy everything you need to make your own seed packet garland.
Finding the right couch
I bounced between 3 different secondhand couches and didn't like any of them. Two were from thrift shops and one was my grandparents old couch. I decided to buy an IKEA Uppland couch because my parents have an IKEA couch and they love it. I've had it for two years now and it’s been great. It has a washable slip cover which is so nice.
The armchairs
While we're on the subject of IKEA I do have a wingback armchair from there that I got in the open box/damaged section. They cost $300 new and it was half price so I paid $150!
My other two armchairs were both found at yard sales. The white chair was $100 and is a rocker with a slip cover. The yellow chair is vintage with velvet corduroy that I'm in love with. I found it for $10 and I get so many compliments on it!
The green pie safe
My green pie safe is one of the first furniture pieces I ever purchased. I bought it from an antique furniture shop called Phyllis in Hamilton (But it's located in Allegan, MI now). I love the original color it's the most perfect garden green. It came with little teacup hooks and I’ll hang teacups off it. At Halloween time I hang little blow mold pumpkins.
The coffee table
I found my coffee table on Facebook marketplace for $60. I like that it's neutral because then it can be easily changed during the seasons. I recently sewed this coffee table runner out of a vintage sheet that's pink and I can't wait to sew other runners for Halloween and Christmas.
End tables
My yellow end table is from Allegan Antique Market in Michigan. I think it used to have glass in it and the person flipped it and put yellow floral fabric inside instead. I adore it!
Also I have two thrifted lamps in my living room that I recovered with daisy fabric. You can read my fabric lamp recovering tutorial for step by step instructions.
The mid century modern record cabinet
One of my favorite pieces ever is my MCM record cabinet! I keep all the records I listen to in here. It's wood and I added the atomic starbursts to it which you can read all about on my blog. I also put the decals on the wood door in my living room.
Purple display decor shelf
I found my purple shelf at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore in Holland. It was a canning shelf and the doors originally went the whole way up. We took the doors off and cut off half so that I could display decorations on the top shelves and still have storage on the bottom shelves. I love having hidden storage in my house to help with home decorating organization.
The curtains
The curtains were a labor of love because it took a few years to thrift enough of the same vintage sheet to make four curtain panels. I sewed a plain white sheet on the back of each panel so they would be insulated.
My living room is my favorite spot in the house. I love how light it is because of the big window and I put my favorite decor in here too. If you'd like to see more of my home be sure to read my Vintage Kitchen Tour post.
