Style Flashback: Retro Diner

I have been working on several projects the last few days but none of it is ready to show you yet. So I thought it might be fun to do a little flashback to a couple of our old apartments and show you how our style has evolved. We are currently going for a Dark Victorian look but we started out with a Retro 50's Diner style. You can find all sorts of things from this era at garage sales so it is a great way to decorate if you are short on cash and want something fun and unique.

These photos were never intended to be used in a blog so the quality isn't that great and there aren't really any close up shots but hopefully you will still be able to get the feel of what we were going for.

In the living room we took a bunch of old 45's and hung them as a border along the ceiling. We turned an LP into a clock and hung one of my husband's guitars as an art piece. The awesome table lamp came from Walmart, I believe, and the rotary phone and lava lamps were from garage sales. The couch and chair were garage sale finds as well, only $40 for these and one other chair!

In the picture above is more of the record border. To the left you can see our old gum ball machine on the desk. On the right is our jukebox that had been gutted and we used it to hold our stereo and put some rope lights in it to light it up. Also in the right of the picture on top of the cabinet you can kind of see our red vintage bread box and martini shaker & glasses. For the dining table we found some diner-style mustard and ketchup dispensers as well as a straw dispenser. The dining table and chairs were free from an old neighbor. The chairs were pretty torn up so I recovered them in sparkly red vinyl. They originally looked like this:

I couldn't do much in the kitchen because it was so small. I found the old blender at Habitat for Humanity Re-Store for $10 (I still have it and it works great!) and the toaster came from Target. Our counter tops were originally covered in beige contact paper and had tons of scratches in it so we recovered it in our own silver contact paper.

We ended up moving before we had a chance to finish the patio but it would have been awesome in a full blown tiki theme. My husband built this bar which actually did double duty as a cover for our grill. The bar was free-standing and would slide out so you could pull out the grill that was inside. The barstools we found by the side of the road.

The table also did double duty as storage. Inside was a plastic tub that held my husband's tools. This area was originally overgrown with ivy and was completely unusable. We kept the ivy climbing on the walls but got rid of everything on the ground and put down the paving stones to extend the patio area. We also put up the lattice for added privacy and because the slats in the fence were big enough for Jeremy to slip out.

So there you have it, a look at our very first apartment together. Tomorrow I will show you the first house that allowed us to paint the walls. You might want to bring your sunglasses or you could be blinded by all of the colors! ;-)

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