Retro furniture typically refers to any kind of furniture that was once extremely popular and trendy. The term has its limits, however--Victorian era tables will probably never be properly referred to as "retro." To the contrary, retro furniture usually includes any type of once-again-fashionable furniture from the last 50 years.

Finding Retro Furniture

If you're looking for truly authentic retro furniture, your options are limited. You'll either need to spend a lot of time looking for hidden gems at garage sales and auctions, or you'll have to spend a lot and buy pieces from a collector who knows what they're worth. Neither option is great if you're constrained by time or money--which most of us normally are.

Luckily, since retro furniture has become so popular (and fashionable), it's easy to buy "faux-retro." Faux-retro furniture is not only cheaper and easier to find, it can also offer substantial improvements over original models. For instance, that 1950s diner table you love might have been made out of heavy steel, but the copycat version is made from sturdy, lightweight alloys.

Retro-looking furniture is also great because it combines the best of the old and the new. I particularly love objects that hearken back to earlier periods while including modern stylish touches or technologies. This can be a lot of fun since it combines both an old-fashioned vision of the future with our current vision of what's futuristic.