Vintage Industrial Interior Design Ideas

Whether your home style is rustic, industrial or farmhouse, vintage industrial accents work well to enhance the design. Some popular vintage industrial pieces are made up of salvaged wood or chunky metal. You can find these type of accents at an antique or architectural salvage store. Sometimes collecting the items is easy but how to incorporate them into your interior design is another story.

I have collected many antiques and salvaged items over the years and have mixed them in with my décor in a variety of ways. Now that we live in an old renovated industrial building, the pieces fit in perfectly. Here are a few examples of some of my decorating ideas:

Vintage Industrial Accents

A metal scrapyard is a wonderful place to collect industrial pieces. This stool was made from a variety of rusty metal parts collected from a scrapyard. The seat is an old tractor seat and the footrest is some kind of industrial chain. My husband welded all of the parts together to create the unique design. The gear bookend, behind the stool, was also welded together from a scrapyard gear and metal ends from a building supply store. The vintage violin on the windowsill is just a nice worn piece that fits well with the room.

Here is a larger view of the entire room:

It definitely helps to have an old brick wall and exposed duct work as a backdrop for vintage industrial decorating. Anything vintage and distressed fits in perfectly!

Some of my favorite vintage items are a little quirky and usually aren’t thought of when thinking about home décor.

Take, for instance, my old metal mop bucket!

I bought this bucket at one of my favorite architectural salvage/antique stores, The Blue Door.

I also like to fill this bucket with seasonal flowers.

Another somewhat odd but super cool decorating item is salvaged wood. I was so happy to come across this old piece from some kind of pallet. The stamped numbers are what really did it for me. I needed a place to store my china teacups and was looking for a shelf. This chunk of pallet sitting on my counter acts as a nice anchor display for my cups. I love the contrast of the fine china and the worn wood.