Metals in the home
Whether you want to bring shine, toughness or a touch of the unusual to your home, there’s a metal for you, says Lucy Denyer
Think metal and homes and what springs to mind? Industrial chic, all exposed beams and iron girders? Shiny chrome taps in the bathroom? Perhaps some stainless steel appliances in the kitchen? Sorry, but you’re a bit behind the times. These days, metal is creeping into our homes in all guises and in all places, from wallpaper to flooring, appliances to furniture. It’s been happening for a while now. First, chrome moved out of the bathroom and into slickly modernist lamps and furniture pieces. Then we started seeing pared-down wire shelving units creeping into chic interiors as a minimalist way of doing storage. Last year was all about copper; everything from KitchenAid mixers to free-standing baths was made over. The year culminated with Dulux announcing that its paint colour of the year for 2015 is called Copper Blush. Using metal is hardly new. Medieval nobility used wrought iron in their homes long before we thought of it. More recently in the 20th century, trends shifted through the decades. In the Twenties, chrome was the thing for fixtures, accentuated by plenty of polished mirrors. The Sixties and Seventies saw Brutalist metalwork become popular, with designers forming chandeliers, wall sconces, lamps and sculpture from sheet metal cut with a torch. In the Eighties, gold and brass were de rigueur in smart interiors, before gold taps in the bathroom started to look less chic and more super-rich ostentatious. Right now, metals in any form are big – but they appear with more subtlty than before. “At the moment, there is a real leaning towards