Retro Kitchen Design - How to Make It Work in Your Home

Retro kitchen design is a growing trend in interior design, which embodies a sense of nostalgia for simpler times. The companies who manufacture kitchen appliances and accessories have been quick to catch on to this trend, and there are wide ranges of retro inspired kitchen products available on any high street.

If a retro kitchen design appeals to you, it is possible either to go full retro or just add nostalgic little touches to your existing room. However, you must be careful to design your kitchen so that it still fits in with the feel of your home; it is still your kitchen and not a set design.

There are some simple steps you can follow when designing your new kitchen that will ensure that it looks the way you have dreamed:

Firstly, just like a professional interior designer, create a mood board. Go through magazines, or Google image search, and choose pictures of kitchen that you particularly like. Collect these images, maybe draw a circle around what it is you love in that kitchen. When you look at these pictures next to each other notice if there is a common theme, and one theme I can almost guarantee is that the kitchen in the picture is bigger than yours! Is the style you have been drawn to retro? If so, does it seem to have been influenced by a particular era, is it art deco or 1950's. Most retro kitchen designs are inspired by the 1950's, when the new consumerism really took off, and kitchen appliances became the housewife's favourite items.

What is your favourite colour scheme? Is it the classic red, black and white or maybe the brighter jades, turquoise and shocking pink that attract you?

Secondly, you will need to consider your budget. Are you lucky enough to be able to completely remodel your kitchen or do you want to add splashes of retro with new kitchen accessories? If you are working on a small budget, go to your kitchen and look honestly at what you already have. Maybe, you could repaint the cupboards or the walls a bright retro colour.

Thirdly, how much space do you have in your kitchen? Can you fit freestanding appliances, such as a large retro inspired Smeg fridge in bright pink! Or do you have room for a plastic and chrome table and chairs or even a diner style booth?

Retro inspired design should include elements of bright colours, chrome, plastic or formic, and vinyl floors usually in a checkerboard pattern. Combine these materials and colours with kitchen appliances that have a softer, curved design. Also, remember that in the 1950's kitchen appliances would have been freestanding and very noticeable and not fitted in and discrete.

Finally, add decorative items such as vintage tea towels or replica old tin advertising signs or even road signs, think Route 66. Coloured glass works very well in a 1950's inspired kitchen; sundae glasses in sherbet colours will transport you back to an innocent age.

A retro kitchen design can be fun and it is remarkably easy achieve, and is quite budget friendly with so many kitchen manufactures making replicas and items inspired by the past, such as the De'longhi Icona range. The most important thing to remember when designing a retro inspired kitchen is a sense of fun.