Vintage Drum Corps

Typically made of mahogany, teak or bamboo and featuring a range of fabrics and prints with botanical patterns, antique British Colonial furniture and decor varies as it involved local materials and techniques and spanned centuries of design styles.

As the British Empire expanded from the 16th to the 20th century, its conquest and control of colonies around the world bolstered its wealth through the extraction of resources. Including colonies in the Americas, Africa, Asia and Australasia, this spread of often violent subjugation imposed British culture, language and faith on Indigenous peoples. The design of homes was included in this expression of imperial power, with government officials, merchants and military officers creating homes mimicking the luxuries they were used to in England.

Local artisans were commissioned to replicate British designs, resulting in versions of Regency, Chippendale, Sheraton and other styles of furniture being crafted from mahogany, rosewood, ebony and teakwood as opposed to beech and oak, which were more common in Europe. Whereas the colonial furniture for the Portuguese and Dutch regularly had motifs of indigenous flora and fauna, the British tended to want more exact reproductions of their home country’s designs.

To escape the summer heat in places such as India and the Caribbean, British colonizers relocated to airy houses in the hills or plantations, leading to foldable chairs and collapsible desks in the style of military campaign furniture. Rather than upholstery as they might have in Europe, chairs and sofas in the British Colonial style had rattan and cane seating for these higher temperature climates. The contrast between the light textiles and the dark colors of the sturdy furniture became a defining aesthetic of British Colonial interiors.

Find a collection of antique British Colonial outdoor furniture, seating, bedroom furniture, decorative objects and other items on 1stDibs.

Pay tribute to a history of rich and diverse musical traditions that have taken shape all over the world by decorating your home with a collection of antique and vintage musical instruments.

Whether you’re playing them or merely displaying them, vintage musical instruments, when cared for properly, can be a wonderful addition to any space. At between four and five feet in length, an elegant early-1900s Steinway & Sons baby grand piano will undoubtedly steal the show if you’re thinking of yielding some precious real estate to one of these American classics, but maybe you’re simply shopping for art to warm the bare walls of your new apartment or weekend home.

For your living room, maybe you’ve already hunted down portraits by Gered Mankowitz, a celebrated 1960s-era photographer who spent his life capturing iconic images of music’s biggest stars. If you’ve got more space to work with there — or perhaps you need some entertainment room ideas — consider positioning an old guitar as a focal point. If a room has no distinguishing architectural features, you could create a prominent focal point with trending paint colors, stylish shelving, an arrangement of flowers or by wall-mounting a spectacularly aging early-20th-century guitar or other stringed instrument.

Alternatively, much in the way that you might group a collection of artwork to hang salon-style, with a little help from strong hanging wire or some wall hooks, vintage brass instruments such as a gong, French horn or trumpet can help elevate a home office or complement the efforts you’ve made to ensure a welcoming vibe in your home’s entryway. Bells or antique wind instruments can add provocative metallic contrasts to dark woods as tabletop decorative objects. Think of them as eye-catching ornamental flourishes that you can bring to end tables in a common area, to the top of a desk or to a mid-century storage cabinet.

Bring culture and creativity into your space with decades-old plywood tabletop radios or musical instruments from all over the world — be they drums from Africa or harps from France. Even if you’re not exactly getting the band back together, we can promise that the range of antique and vintage instruments on 1stDibs can help strike a meaningful chord in your interior design plan.