Vintage garden furnishings – Creative ideas for the “old” look

Lace, frills, delicate colours and old-fashioned Schnick Schnack – vintage is more popular than ever. Did you know that the garden can also be furnished in vintage style? Here are our ideas.

Vintage here and vintage there – it’s the trend at all. Never before have clothes, everyday objects or retro-look furniture been so popular. But what is “vintage” anyway? Since almost everyone talks about it now, one hardly dares to ask.

Behind the term vintage (in American “altmodisch”) are objects, clothes and accessories of an older date. But this does not only mean the finds of grandma’s attic, but also things made especially for this trend that simply look old.

Nowadays we can not only observe this playful style more and more in clothing and home accessories, but also discover more and more accessories and furnishings for gardens and terraces.

But how do you give your garden this typical vintage flair? Where do you start? Which accessories are suitable for outdoor use? And where do I get the “old” items from?

Questions about questions to which we would now like to give you the answer here. Let us inspire you a little.

Let’s get one thing straight: the vintage style allows different decoration possibilities. We just want to give you an incentive. Afterwards you can let your creativity run wild.

Garden furniture with vintage flair

Even if you can achieve a lot here and there with small decorative accessories, the terrace is and remains the centre of a garden. And that’s exactly where you should start and spread the vintage flair. And what is the number one eye-catcher on a terrace? Of course, the seating furniture. Of course, old pieces of furniture from grandma’s times have a special charm. They have character and tell stories. But unfortunately not many people have access to old garden furniture these days. If you are lucky on the Internet and find another supplier, you often have to reckon with horrendous prices for the furniture. Demand ultimately determines the price.

Of course, you still don’t have to do without it. For example, at gartenmoebel.de I found special seating furniture made of recycled fishboat wood. Only wood from old fishing boats is used. If that’s not vintage enough, I don’t know. The hard-wearing and durable garden furniture is handmade and each product is unique due to its different color composition. In the twinkling of an eye, you have created a vintage-style eye-catcher on the terrace.

“By the way: Garden furniture with a vintage look can also be conjured up from dollar pallets. At selbst.de you will find detailed instructions. And if you want to perfect the seating group with a Shabby Chic look, you can find instructions at selbermachen.de. In this way, individual garden furniture is created step by step, which even makes neighbours jealous.

Garden accessories as the icing on the cake

Of course, nothing works without accessories. If we’re honest, they make up about 80 percent of the overall impression.

If you want to furnish your garden in vintage style, you will find numerous inspirations on the Internet. I would like to introduce the classic accessories to you here:

Zinc decorations:

Who doesn’t know them? Tubs, buckets, jugs, containers and cans made of zinc. They can be seen in every vintage garden and make a real impression with fresh flowers and plants. How about this, for example?

The zinc objects are really rustic if they have already tarnished with rust.

Exceptional plantings:

Old objects are the be-all and end-all of the vintage look. But often these things lack that certain something. My tip: Why don’t you just plant these objects? Like here, for example:

Setting accents with lighting:

Of course, light should not be missing in a vintage garden. Candles and illuminants do not necessarily always have to be on the table? How do you find these ideas, for example?

Turning new into old

Some things just can’t be bought. Ideas have often been fixed in the mind, but there is nothing to be found far and wide in trade. But now you don’t have to put the idea aside. Many accessories and objects can still be refurbished. Here once three possibilities presented:

New colour – new look

With vintage, it doesn’t always have to be wood-coloured. Especially popular with women are light pastel shades such as pink and mint, but also grey, purple and a subtle blue are ideal for a vintage look. A large selection of paints for painting on wood, terracotta and even zinc is available in every specialist market. For woods and zinc, however, the experts recommend a pre-treatment!

Read it, too: Garden furniture from wood new varnish – step by step guidance

Decorating with foil

Decorative foils offer another possibility to apply your furniture, individual objects or accessories. This is even the simplest variant of the ones mentioned here, since the corresponding items simply have to be stuck on.

Here I found e.g. under creatisto.com a large selection. Available are among others:

• various flower prints
• old VW-Bullys
• Slides in Newspaper look
• retro pattern
• and much more

Artificial ageing of wood

Classic for the vintage look is of course wood. But if you want to build something yourself, you often don’t have any old wood for it. But that’s not bad, because wood can be artificially aged with three simple ingredients.

This video shows exactly how this works: