How to Update Your Antique Furniture Collection for the New Year

The start of a new year always fills us with hopes and dreams about all the good things that the next twelve months will bring. Many of us make lists of resolutions, promising to become healthier, see new places, and try things we've never tried before. However, as important as those things are, there's no better way to start the new year than to refresh your home with updated, antique reproduction furniture.

There are a couple of ways to do this: obviously, the first way involves buying brand new furniture, but there are also ways to update the furniture you already have by prioritizing things like upholstery, colors, and lighting. This article shows you examples of both, making it easy for you to update your furniture in the most effective, convenient, and meaningful way for you and your family.

Buying New Furniture

Like we mentioned above, buying new furniture is the easiest way to update your home's style in honor of the new year. If your home has been decorated in a French Provincial style for years, consider redesigning every room in your house in a Victorian or Chippendale style instead. The pieces that you're looking to get rid of you can sell to a fellow reproduction enthusiast, pass along to your beloved family members, or repurpose to create brand new spaces within your home.

There's no limit to the ways that any piece of antique furniture can be used. For example, you can use a small dining room table as a makeshift desk by your living room couch or a small desk as a nightstand in your bedroom. As many of us begin working from home or spending more time inside our houses because of the global pandemic, it's important to enjoy the spaces you live in and get creative and take advantage of the spaces available to you. Buy new pieces to create a beautiful workspace for yourself within your home office, living room, or spare bedroom, but also don't be afraid to use those pieces to create art studios, reading nooks, and creative spaces within the home instead.

If you don't want to spend thousands of dollars on brand new furniture, you can replace smaller accent pieces like coffee tables, end tables, etc. Doing so brings a sense of newness to a space without you having to put forth too much effort, especially if you don't want to get rid of your prized sofas and armchairs.

If you're interested in staying on top of the latest trends in interior design, one of the most popular styles we'll see in 2022 is the reemergence of nature themes. This is great news for antique furniture enthusiasts since many antique pieces feature intricate carvings of flowers, leaves, fruits, and animals. Additionally, most antique furniture is made from solid, natural wood, so it takes care of a lot of the work for you. If you're planning on buying new furniture to update your home for the new year, we encourage you to consider buying pieces featuring those intricate natural carvings. Not only is this because they're exceptionally fashionable, but also because they're excellent conversation-starters.

Making Old Furniture Look New

If you don't want to spend a lot of money on new pieces of antique furniture, one of the best ways to update the furniture you already have is to refinish, repaint, or reupholster it. Interior design enthusiasts have only gotten more and more creative over the years, and with a simple online search, you can see plenty of ways that antique furniture owners have used adhesive wallpaper and stencils to add a special, unique touch to their pieces.

For a specific example of this, we need only look at the creative things people have done with antique bookcases. With some new paint and stick-on wallpaper, it's easy to use the shelves to arrange books stylishly, display special keepsakes, stash visually appealing storage boxes, or turn the entire bookcase into a modern coffee bar.

A simple reupholstery can make a world of difference for your sofas and armchairs, and another 2022 trend we expect to see is a resurgence of the color blue. Since blue is such a calming, serene color, we recommend reupholstering the furniture pieces in your bedroom, living room, and bathroom with blue fabrics.

More often than not, it's not as much about updating the furniture itself as it is about updating the things you display on the furniture. An easy way to feel like you're giving your furniture an update without putting forth a lot of effort is to switch out vases, throw blankets, throw pillows, picture frames, coasters, rugs, curtains, and other pieces of artwork. Even a simple change in color scheme can make a room look and feel brand new! And if you'd like to breathe new life into your furniture in a very literal way, bring plants, flowers, and other greenery in from your garden to sit upon your plant stands, kitchen tables, home office desks, etc.

Give the illusion of new furniture by shedding new light on it–literally! Lighting does wonders in any space, able to make a room (and everything in it) look completely different depending on which kind of light you use. It helps if you use floor lamps and table lamps to your advantage by drawing attention to desirable parts of a room vs. the parts you wouldn't mind keeping hidden. Instead of spending money buying an entire set of new furniture, invest in a chandelier or other new light fixture and watch the way your room transforms effortlessly.

Update your antique furniture without having to spend any money at all by simply rearranging it. You can invite positive energy into a space simply by moving the furniture around, having furniture in new places, and giving the illusion that you've bought new furniture, especially if you change up accessories and color schemes as we mentioned above.

We hope that this year brings you health and joy beyond measure! Happy New Year!