Retro kitchen decor can be tricky to get right in a modern kitchen. When you design your kitchen you want to get a feel for the era that has inspired you, but you don’t want the room to feel out-of-place with the rest of your home. You are looking to achieve a clever balance of style, practicality and humour.
The five best retro colour schemes, also happen to be the most popular and among the easiest to use to achieve that retro kitchen look you were aiming for:
1) Black, white and red. This is a strong colour combination that is made very easy to use by the amount of kitchen appliances and accessories available on the high street.
Starting at the floor, with a black and white checkerboard vinyl flooring. Then you could use either red or white for your cupboards or walls. Choosing to put one colour on your cabinets and the other on the walls, this will help to maintain a visual balance in the scheme. For example, white cabinets and white tiled splashbacks, black worktops and cherry red walls.
To accessorize this colour scheme you can add red vintage linen, or red plastic seating to your kitchen table. There is also a wide range of kitchen appliances such as toasters, kettles and even fridges and range cookers available in red.
2) Pink, black and white. Starting as before, with a black and white checkerboard floor or pink and black but that would be much harder to source on the high street. Then have white cabinets with a black work surface and a white tiled splashback. Then you can go wild with pink, shocking pink walls, pink window blinds and pink kitchen accessories. All of these pink accessories are wildly available and very easy to come by.
3) Turquoise, black and white. This colour scheme again starts with the black and white flooring, white cupboards and splashbacks. Then add turquoise blue on walls, curtains, linens and seating. It is also possible to find some turquoise kitchen appliances, although they are quite rare.
4) Red, white and teal. Just for a change have red and white checkerboard vinyl flooring as your starting point. You can then paint your cupboards or kitchen walls in teal, with a white tiled splashback.
If you can find a red work surface it would look stunning and very retro. Then add your kitchen accessories in either red or teal, it will almost certainly be easier to find red accessories. Remember always to keep a balance of colours.
5) Orange, brown and blue. This colour combination is very early 1960’s inspired. When using orange, brown and blue keep in mind the room they will be going in and the available light. as this colour combination in a small, dark room could become oppressive. A way to avoid this would be to add cream to the mix. If your cupboards or splashbacks where cream, with bright blue walls and orange accents, the room would feel brighter and vibrant.
It is very easy to use these retro colour schemes in a modern kitchen as many kitchen manufacturers now produce kitchen appliances and accessories in a rainbow of colours. However, always remember to balance your colours, an equal amount of each colour wont work as well as having one dominant colour, one secondary and then a third accent colour.
Retro kitchen decor can be a good place to start to add feeling and warmth into your kitchen, making it the heart of your home.
