Decorating With Antique Silver

*This is a guest post all about decorating with antique silver

Often overlooked, antique silver is a décor tool that can be your best friend. Regardless of the interior design style, you’re most interested in, consider silver as that finishing touch that makes everything just so.

Let’s have a go at some examples of just how well silver compliments a group of highly contrasting design styles.

Modern

Interior design that focuses on being modern has a focus on clean lines and relatively basic colour palettes. All about being simple yet sophisticated, silver could not be a more perfect addition if it tried.

Even a single antique silver piece, such as a tray for carrying drinks or an old silver bowl converted into a trinket bowl maintains that crispness that we expect from modern interiors, whilst adding a little twist that keeps things interesting and makes your interior stand out from the crowds of black and white spaces.

Although there is an emphasis on sleekness in the modern interior design style – which typically excludes the use of accessories – functional antique silverware is still a great direction for any diehard design-heads. A silver bowl for storing fruit, or a silver cream jug to compliment your morning tea and coffee brings a touch of something special that is consistent with the modern style.

Antique silver in a traditional interiors

An interior designer who focuses on traditional design is open to being a little lavish and ornate. Heavy fabrics like velvet and brocade are welcomed into the traditionally-designed household, along with a plethora of colour and pattern. Usually focussed on darker colours, the use of silver offers a way of getting some light into the space.

More ornate antique silverware, such as Victorian silverware, is the perfect addition to a traditional space. Its stylised design makes it pleasingly textured and its reflective surface allows the light present in the room to have a little more impact.

Possibly the most perfect piece of antique silverware for a traditional interior is a tea set. It maintains a useful function, it has a history befitting the space, and there is a certain whimsy about a tea set that makes traditional interiors that bit more playful and less serious. If not a tea set, perhaps a vase for flowers, or a photo frame would be the finishing touch needed.

Boho

Boho styles are very strong and indicative of certain periods and places, like sunny California. The ethos of the bohemian interior design style is that it’s very free-spirited. Usually, something of an international feeling is created be boho aesthetics, as they take influence from plenty of cultural styles around the globe.

Silverware to compliment this eclectic style can come from a variety of places. Small, nick-nack pieces like pin cushions, toast racks, and card cases can all be utilised and – in some cases – repurposed to be a useful and much-loved element of the home.

Because the boho style is focussed more on a lack of rules than most other styles, antique silverware couldn’t be a better choice. It can’t go out of style, it adds an interesting dimensionality to any space, and it makes your interior feel more ‘lived-in’. If you want your silver to bring the international vibe to your boho space, consider Asian silverware. A lot of antique silverware from areas of the world like India and China are highly stylised to reflect the scenery and popular themes from those regions.

Antique silver in minimalist interiors

Last but not least, arguably one of the most popular design styles of our time, minimalism. A counter-consumer culture has taken hold in much of the Western world, and it has led to interiors that are ultra-clean, tidy, and practical. The ethos of the minimalist interior is that it should be peaceful. A space that usually has neutral colours and little in the way of accessories.

Similar to the modern interior design style, minimalism benefits best from silverware that is also a practical piece of furniture. Silver trays are always a safe bet for this interior design style as they have so many uses yet perfectly compliment the emphasis on cleanness that can be found in minimalist interiors.

If you’re interested in more ideas, however, there are plenty of other useful pieces of silverware that would be welcomed in a minimalist space. Anything from a jewellery box, to a photo frame, to a pair of salt and pepper shakers, can be found in clean, crisp antique silverware styles that would all sit nicely alongside any minimalist interior.

And there we have it, just a few suggestions for how silverware can be incorporated into your ideal space, whether that space is an old-timey study filled with leatherbound books and mahogany, or an ultra-modern space with white floors and walls and as few furnishings as possible.