Get into the festive spirit this month with some super sparkling home decor. Think luxurious metallics and all things burnished, hammered and textured. A little bit of opulence mixed with a lot of artisan. These golden beauties promise to fill your home with comfort and joy long after the Christmas decorations have come down.
Golden Living
We all spend so much more time inside in December, and quite a bit of it, er, boozing. Enjoy your bubbly to the fullest with golden champagne flutes and serve your guests cocktails on a golden tray.
This gold coffee table is a real showstopper. Entirely hand-hammered and with a clever aged effect, it will bring a modern bohemian vibe to your living room. I’d put a big soft rug underneath it; there’s more than enough noise from the teenagers in my house without the furniture joining in.
Look at this unusual mango wood TV console. The carved wood and the gold sliding door are so lovely I don’t think I could concentrate on the telly if I had it in my house; I’d be too busy admiring it.
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Portuguese Gold
Interior designer Vera Verinha from Lisbon has an online shop called More Vintage Portugal, selling rare and vintage Portuguese homeware. With more than a thousand items in stock at any one time, it’s a treasure trove for antique home decor lovers. This carved brass plate and brass stand for hot plates would be a great centrepiece on a festive dinner table.
Gold Wall Decor
You don’t have to spend a fortune on gold wall art – you can make your own! All you need is a large canvas, a few tubs of thick glue and some metallic paint.
Hiper Lagos on the N125 near Odiáxere has a great range of cheap canvases. Or have a look in your local charity shop – you might be lucky enough to pick up an old print you can paint over.
In the two pictured here, I’ve used string and PVA glue to create pattern and texture, squeezing the glue straight onto the canvas in thick layers. I went for abstract sun motifs, but palm leaves and flowers work really well, too.
You need to do quite a few layers to get a 3D effect and make sure you give each one 24 hours to dry before applying the next. Once it’s rock hard, paint over the whole thing with gold emulsion. I like to buy both gold and silver paint (Leroy Merlin in Portimão has a good range) and mix them together to get a pale gold that’s not too in your face.
So simple to create yet so effective, just one piece of original gold art will have your home looking like a boutique hotel!
Gold Bedroom
Lounge in the lap of luxury with this hand-made bolster cushion in a detailed geometric design woven in golden silk. Becca Cadbury sews all her cushions by hand from rare vintage Japanese kimonos and obi belts, each one is a labour of love and completely unique.
This gold ceramic lamp would bring a bit of glamour to a bedside table and this handmade moon phase garland is a gorgeous decorative piece for a bedroom wall. Inspired by the lunar cycle, the hammered brass moons glisten in the light and chime in the breeze. Hang it above a bed frame or near an open window for a touch of whimsical warmth.
Golden Bathroom
There can be a lot of traffic in this often-neglected room over the festive season. Give your loo some love and your guests a treat with this hand-carved Moroccan brass towel ring, ornate toilet roll holder and gold freestanding washbasin. (If you’re lucky, they might spend more time in there and less time exhausting you – hee hee only joking, I love house guests at Christmas!)
