Retro Furniture & Décor – “Old” Is the New “New” 

This year, for the first time in ages, turntables outsold electric guitars at our nation's retailers. Everything old is new again, and vinyl is hot -- and not just for disc-spinning club DJ's, either. Record collectors are buying record (no pun intended) numbers of turntables, while millions of Americans are rediscovering the warmth of the vinyl recordings that have been gathering dust in closets for a couple of decades. Hip bars and lounges are forsaking the loud digital sound systems for the intimate pleasures of turntables.

The cool thing is that you can play your old Tijuana Brass albums in perfect retro style without laying down a whole paycheck or two for an audiophile turntable. In fact, the neo-retro record-players currently in vogue much more closely resemble the record-players you or your parents had as a teen-ager -- exactly the sort of player most of your old albums probably were intended to play on.

One of our favorite retro turntables is the Celebrity Record Player with 3 Speed Turn Belt, a beautiful, old-style turntable with a three speed belt drive (for 45s, 33s, and 78s for the truly retro-minded) available in cherry, oak, or paprika finish. It marries old-school design with modern convenience and high-quality audio components. And though its charming style is pure 1930s, the case conceals a CD player, a cassette player, and AM-FM radio -- because not all of your music is on vinyl, after all.

For the 1950s fanatic, there's the AutoRama CD turntable in three great retro finishes: brushed chrome, black or candy-apple red. This one also hides a CD player, but you'd never know it from its streamlined style. This is one turntable that Peggy Sue herself would be proud to fire up at the sock-hop.

Another truly old-fashioned option is the Queen Anne Console Stack-O-Matic, a handsome wooden cabinet housing modern, high-tech audio components in elegant antique style. Finished with a beautiful paprika stain, this is the perfect complement to those old Caruso recordings your grandmother left you.

If these turntables don't sate your demand for classic retro styling from the Fifties and the Art Deco era -- or if you just don't own any records -- there are plenty of other design options that pay tribute to this period of classic American design.

For instance, there are times when you don't want a cordless phone. They get lost, the batteries run down -- and your teen-agers run off to their bedrooms with them. There is no better solution to that problem than the Dreyfuss 500 wall phone, a design straight out of 1949 and, for our money, better looking than anything touchtone phones. This is one solid, all-business phone, available in beautiful brushed chrome, black or white. The desk version of the Dreyfuss  is an equally handsome piece. If your home or office has too many little black boxes with batteries and antennae, these phones are a great way to reclaim a little bit of classic style and American functionality.

And if the Fifties aren't quite retro enough for you, feast your eyes on this bronze candlestick phone, with a design that harkens back to the turn of the century. For anything more retro and you'll have to get a telegraph.

Other cool things for the house include jukeboxes, neon wall clocks, cool diner barstools, beautiful heirloom hope chests  -- which are a great place to stash those old vinyl records -- and beautiful "cathedral" radios  that will put you in the mood for one of FDR's fireside chats.