Bringing old Madrid to the South End

Julio de Haro and Lara Gavigan found a narrow-backed lounge chair (above) on Craigslist for $30. (Travis Dove for The Boston Globe)

When Julio de Haro and Lara Gavigan began planning their South End tapas restaurant last year, they had a few guiding concepts in mind: Art Deco. Relaxed. Something that evoked an old Madrid tapas bar, or, as Gavigan puts it, "a Spanish living room in the 1930s."

Like many creative people decorating on a limited budget, de Haro and Gavigan set out to do more with less. They scoured eBay, Craigslist, Target, and IKEA. They hit flea markets in New York City and Madrid, de Haro's native city.

"We didn't even think to hire someone [for the design]," says Gavigan, who grew up in Adelaide, Australia, and worked with de Haro at his former restaurant, Brookline's Taberna de Haro. "We didn't have investors. It was just Julio and I, so everything counted."

Estragon, which opened June 4, attests to the success of the pair's shoestring approach. The eclectic décor, peppered with some particularly quirky pieces, is unified by a quiet, retro elegance.

Enter the lounge at the front of the restaurant, and you'll find a collection of mismatched yet dignified chairs and couches in bold purple and gold tones, as well as one in a plush leopard print. All the pieces were procured from Craigslist for $30 to $400 each, and later reupholstered.

Four matching, gold-accented coffee tables (all but one purchased on Craigslist) pull the space together, while sheer black curtains and a curious black-and-white poster of a bead-wearing, breast-bearing woman lend the feel of your grandmother's parlor, were your grandmother a 1930s bohemian.

In the spacious main dining area, sparsely spaced vintage Spanish posters from eBay overlook tables from Ikea. To add a bit of character to the originally white tables, Gavigan slipped sheets of silver and black floral wrapping paper from Target beneath the glass tabletops.

To be sure, some concessions to pricier vendors were made. All of the lighting, including a set of art deco chandeliers, came from the Expo Design Center in Burlington. A few furniture items, including the fourth coffee table in the lounge area, came from Europe Today in Brighton. The wallpaper, which alternates a dark gold floral pattern with a lighter, scalloped pattern, was found on a website called Creative Wallcoverings.

"Finding the wallpaper was a particularly arduous process," Gavigan says. "Most nice wallpapers are residential. For commercial use, they have to be fire-coded, and for some reason, a lot of them look like they're out of the Holiday Inn."

The golden walls and the black-and-white checkered floor shore up the Art Deco feel and provide a fitting backdrop for the restaurant's quirkier touches, such as the spinning "disco sangria" machine behind the bar, found for free at a local restaurant supply shop, and a swan-shaped 1930s lamp bought from the popular El Rastro flea market in Madrid.

Still, Gavigan worries that the quirk-quotient might be lacking, at least in the bar area.

"I just don't want it to look like a grandmother's bar," she says, adding that she's thinking about bringing in a mannequin head to shake things up. "I'm not sure what Julio thinks about that," she said, laughing.

De Haro, in fact, has been quiet up until now. (To be fair, he's been manning Las Ventas, the specialty-foods shop next door that he and Gavigan also own.) Gavigan makes it clear that all the decorating decisions are made jointly, but acknowledges she did most of the research.

Even so, it was de Haro who lent the Estragon décor its most personal touch: A row of framed black-and-white photographs of his family and friends on the wall behind the bar.

"Those are my parents in the middle," he says, pointing to a couple strolling arm-in-arm. And at the start of the row, a picture of de Haro as a boy, at what appears to be a family gathering. "We're Catholic, so it might have been a first Communion," he offers.

Family portraits aside, de Haro says he's particularly fond of the old Spanish posters. One is a Civil War image emblazoned with the word "Fascismo." Another is an advertisement in which lavishly dressed Spanish beauties entice onlookers to "Fly TWA."

Though Gavigan admits that she and de Haro might have done some things differently had they contracted out the restaurant's design, she says doing it themselves has allowed them to determine the feel of the space.

"We knew we wanted something that people would feel comfortable walking into," she says. "We're getting there slowly."