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Too often we strip out all indications of a home’s period if it’s not perfectly in style, leaving another bland beige bathroom or stainless steel kitchen in its wake. A 1950s ranch house kitchen may have once been a symbol of suburban conformity, but today it can be a sign of an economical and thoughtful renovation—keeping what still works while also making it work for today.

Making these styles look modern instead of dull and dated often comes down to making simple changes that bring seemingly disparate elements together into something that feels intentional—not recreating your grandmother’s kitchen down to the TV dinners—finding a creative paint scheme that can tie your Formica countertop into the rest of your kitchen, using a vintage-inspired wallpaper that makes that turquoise tile fit in, or adding clean, modern textiles to a drab piece of furniture.

Midcentury Modern

Few of us are lucky enough to live in an original mid-century modern Eichler home, but we can still look to them for ideas. A little more couture than kitsch, the best Eichlers combine exuberant midcentury palettes with the restraint of architectural minimalism. The Eichler Network offers great advice on using color in midcentury homes, and includes the original Eichler body and accent color palettes, which still look amazingly contemporary while remaining completely vintage.

Totally Retro

Not only does Retro Renovation offer glimpses inside well-preserved and well-renovated vintage homes that offer a lot of inspiration, their product guide for vintage and vintage-look materials, from appliances to tile, is incredibly useful for any retro homeowner. If you’ve got old tile or appliances in colors that you can’t imagine matching anything at all, take a look at the paint product guide—with its vintage palettes, you’ll find ideas for tones for complimenting common vintage colors.

Color Cues

While the heyday of pink bathrooms may be over, retro modern fabrics remain popular and readily available. Modern takes on vintage fabrics from sources like Repro Depot, Purl, and even Ikea are not only practical for curtains, pillows, and upholstery that can help bring your room together, their colors and patterns also provide contemporary cues for vintage color combinations.

If your color selection strategies have ever included buying whatever’s cheap or staring aimlessly at 27 shades of blue you can’t tell apart like I have, then you could use a little more help than the usual “choose a color from something you love” advice, too, which thankfully, these all offer.

Copycat Color

It’s easy to fall in love with colors you see in a catalog, but between lighting, photography, printing, and paint matching, it’s hard to know what you’ll really end up with, unless you’re trying to match up colors from the CB2 catalog. The generous folks from CB2 have kindly posted the exact Benjamin Moore colors they used in their latest catalog on their blog, so you too can emulate their look, right down to their paint job. And, if you’re thinking of buying any of their furniture, it’s an easy shortcut to colors that don’t clash.

Color Trends

Unless you update your paint colors as often as your shoes, color forecasting may not be for you. But knowing what everyone else is likely to do can give you a chance to get started early and look like a trendsetter, or avoid those colors and make some safer, more long-term choices. Every year paint, trend, design, and color companies like Pantone offer predictions for hot colors for each year.

In 2010? Turquoise, because according to Pantone, “Turquoise transports us to an exciting, tropical paradise while offering a sense of protection and healing in stressful times.” Uh, okay. For 2010 Behr highlights amber, aqueous teal, orange, gold, and jade. In other words: blue and orange. With that in mind, you can plan accordingly. Especially if you were a fan of that popular 70’s color “goldenrod.”

Color Previews

Paint chips, paint swatches, and even that color forecast that promised you turquoise was going to be perfect in your kitchen can’t ever really give you a sense of how a color’s going to look splashed across four walls. Luckily, most paint manufacturers, including Sherwin-Williams and Behr, can help you check yourself before you buy five gallons of apple green with their online color visualization tools. Select your colors and apply to rooms online—either from sample photos or your own—and you’ll think better of painting your bathroom that same terra cotta orange I once did and maybe even that color of the year.