Old Home Decorating should be done tastefully and with care. Choosing an appropriate period in history to match your house is the first step. To give your guests the feel you want there is quite a bit you will need to understand.
Of course if you have a vintage home you do not have to decorate it in an old style. However if you decorate to the period of your house, the experience your guests will have will be much more memorable.
The secret is to maintain the flow. Viewing your house from the exterior should set your mind up for “an experience” as you enter the home and move from room to room. That same feeling should continue right into the kitchen.
Antique furniture is not all that set the stage for your old home decorating. The layout is also important. Let me use coffee tables as an example. While they are nice to have today, you would not find them in a 1920’s house. Nor will you find end tables. Furniture layout was different. While you don’t have to make your home into a museum, if you try to be as real as you can and not like everyone else’s home, your guests will be more impressed.
Models to Follow for Old Home Decorating and Design
Watching old movies can be very educational for owners of old homes. You will see examples of interior and exterior architectural features, landscaping, wallpaper, furniture, lighting, gadgets, etc. that will help with decorating your old home.
Watching a contemporary film of the period is your best example. In other words if you are watching a silent film from 1915 that takes place in 1915 (or close to it), you then have a great example to follow.
Be careful with older movies that represent earlier times. The movie “I’ll Cry Tomorrow ” with Susan Hayward (1955) is supposed to take place in the 1930’s, but the musical style, clothing, and hair style, and furniture are 1950’s.
Most old movies were filmed on movie sets and not in real homes, but these interior and exterior props were designed based on real life rooms of the period. So a movie set is as accurate as if it were a real house of the time – except for the cardboard walls.
1924 old home decorating. Note wallpapers, hard wood floors with throw rugs on top of rugs, electric and gas sconce, portieres, pictures, chair rail height, etc.
Sherlock Jr. (Buster Keaton 1924) in the above photo is one such example to follow. There is really a lot of information in this picture to use as a model for old home decorating.
Some things I like to pick out are the new electric wires mounted on the exterior of the wall which leads to a toggle light switch predating push-button switches.
Round frosted light bulbs that look like ping pong balls in chandeliers and sconces, are seen in silent films in 1920 and then changed to more pointed bulbs around the mid 1930’s.
Notice the calendar says 1934, the round frosted light bulbs in the sconces, and the style of the picture frames on the walls.
Many times at movie-night parties with friends I will have to ask to reverse the movie just so I can get a closer look at a light switch or a toaster. You can imagine my friend’s enjoyment when I ask that!
If not an old contemporary movie then look at actual historic catalogs. No disneyland or period inspired photos here!
Notice the shutters how they are mounted. How the look when closed and opened and that they fold over double.
Through this I found a good photo of exterior folding shutters to add to my website.
Notice the 2nd floor windows. On the center window the shutters are closed but on the right window the shutters are open and folded over to fit into a narrow space. This is important to know if you have a similar window and want to add shutters.
There are also some books I have listed on my website. These books are great for old home decorating.
Here is one such book I recommend. Interior photos 1860-1917 This book features a collection of photos from 1860 through 1917 of real rooms in average homes that a person can relate to.
What better way to understand period decorating styles than by examples.
So get the popcorn, sit back, and let the silver screen transport you back in time and help you with your old home and antiques.
Please use the Comment box below to let us know if you have any suggestions of movies or photos sites!
Check out my old home decorating here.
UPDATE:
I always wanted a piano shawl or piano scarf for my player piano. I have seen them briefly in the background of old movies. I have searched for them for years at flee markets and on the internet with no luck.
When watching the 1933 version of Little Women with Katherine Hepburn and Joan Bennett , I noticed that every fireplace mantle was dressed in a mantle scarf – not really different from a piano scarf. I paused the movie and took photographs.
I was able to see the type of material, tassels and fringes, and how it was constructed. Notice in the photo, to create the draped look, it is tacked to the underside of the mantle.
Of course I would not put tacks in my piano, but can have it stitched as such to reproduce an authentic piano scarf. I would have it draped higher in the center for access to the piano rolls.
Here are the pictures if you would also like to copy them!
Notice the drape effect is created by inserting tacks into the fireplace. Stitching would be better.
Larger tassels on this mantle scarf show authentic old home decorating. Look at how young Joan Bennett is here.
Our readers along with myself would love to hear any stories you have about “movie inspiration” for your home etc.
I really like your blog , very usefull and good for my knowledge
Thanks!
Valuable post thanks for share with us, Great job!!
kudos to you and the restoration of your house. its refreshing to read that you didn’t go the stainless and granite route in the kitchen.
my goal when i bought my 1880 stick victorian was to take her back as far as i could but stay not only true to the house without over doing it and sticking to the style of “stick” instead of going the queen anne route. I use movies, internet and books on different victorian styles…your blog has been a great resource tool…. thank you!!
What a great site! Love it. Nice practical advice for the old-house owner. Glad I found you.
I watch many movies a second time to check out the décor and styling, and the BBC has impeccable art direction for many of its period dramas, right up to the early 60s, and georgous lighting. Even those old cornball films that may not be totally correct can have some interesting stuff, like “The Secrete Life of Walter Mitty.” The woodwork of even the Queen Anne they live in looks right, and the kitchen is totally old-fashioned. I even like the totally ordinary office sets of that film. Anything by Alfred Hitchcock has interesting architecture. Some films of the 50s can be great to show how ordinary people lived, like Marty or On the Waterfront or The Apartment. Of newer films, I like “A Christmas Story” for its pitch-perfect period details.
The flat lighting and Technicolor brightness of some of these old films adds a stagey and not quite right touch, but of course so does the wrong period make up and hairstyling and often clothes and undergarments. Still, I am often surprised by how good a lot of the old sets look, probably because they were built by craftsman who grew up with these type of buildings that were still in original condition. Now they don’t build them, but find relics of an earlier age and enhance them. Note how almost every house they pick has real wood windows and doors and siding and not vinyl, unless it is an indictment on suburbia or something by the Coen brothers, who are masters of 70s trailer home.