How Martha Stewart Uses Vintage Kitchen Products As Wall Decor

Decorating a room can cost a pretty penny when you shop at major retailers. However, if you want something that's not only unique, but also more affordable, take a page from Martha Stewart's book and seek out some vintage kitchen products to fill your wall space.

Many retro kitchen designs relied on warm tones, heritage hardware, and hodgepodge styles that are difficult to execute with most modern decor options. This only becomes more challenging when dealing with larger, blank areas. However, in 2021 blog post, Stewart explained how she tackles this with an array of vintage dishes, focusing on ones with elaborate patterns and textures that still feature understated colors. While these may require more secure mountings than a standard picture frame, the result is undeniable, delivering a singular look that's difficult to find elsewhere and declaring the environment as one focused on food and coziness.

Before hanging anything, Stewart measured the surface she planned to fill and arranged her vintage kitchen products on the floor to plan their layout. This is a great way to not only save yourself from unnecessarily drilling into your walls, but also to identify any gaps that you may want to fill. This sort of planning is especially important if you have oddly shaped items, like cabbage plates, that you may want to make the centerpiece of your wall designs. Plus, it gives you a chance to compare how they'll look with your more usable pieces, matching textures and materials for a thematic setting.

The key to using vintage kitchen products as decor is to hunt through thrift shops, garage sales, and estate sales. Not only will this help you secure more unique, hard-to-find pieces, but it'll also keep the process affordable and show you options you may not have known existed.

For large centerpieces, you should never pass up cast-iron pans when thrifting. Whether you keep a weathered look or restore them to a pristine sheen, they're iconic objects of cooking memorabilia that can become useful in a pinch. However, they're quite heavy, so if you don't have a stud you can reliably mount them to, you may want to opt for a group of plates like Stewart did instead. These may be an even better choice if you can find a complete collection, letting you fill a larger surface area with the same colors and designs, similar to using wallpaper.

When you need to fill gaps — or if your collection is still growing — look to small-scale kitchenware like vintage spoons and spatulas, or even curiosities like hand-crank whisks, liquor jugs, and barrel tops. Because these come in such a wide variety of shapes and sizes, they're perfect for tucking between larger focal points, and their contrasting materials add depth to your arrangement. Paired with the right plants, or even some old-school lighting trends, you can develop your space into something warm, inviting, and personalized.