29 Colorful Decor Finds That Look Expensive

A room can look like a designer spent a fortune on it when the real secret is a thrift shelf, an estate sale basement and a buyer who knows what a pontil mark means. Color does most of the work. Saturated glass, loud glazes and bold wool tend to read as deliberate and costly, even when the price tag says otherwise.

The trick is recognizing the good stuff under the dust. The pieces below have makers, marks and a design pedigree that gives them far more presence than their secondhand price suggests.

Blenko Glass From West Virginia

Blenko has been blowing glass in Milton, West Virginia, since the early Twentieth Century, and its mid-century vases and stoppered decanters come in tangerine, sea green, cobalt and a ruby that glows in window light. Designers such as Winslow Anderson and Wayne Husted gave the company its sculptural, oversized shapes.

Most pieces carry no permanent mark, so shoppers look for the heavy walls, rough pontil scars and a foil sticker if it survived. A tall Husted-era bottle on a mantel looks like gallery glass.

Murano Sommerso Vases

Sommerso means “submerged,” and the technique encases one color inside another, so a vase might show a deep violet core wrapped in amber and then clear glass. Flavio Poli made the look famous at Seguso Vetri d’Arte in the Nineteen-Fifties, and countless Murano workshops followed.

Genuine pieces feel dense and cold, with crisp color boundaries rather than muddy swirls. Unsigned souvenir versions still look rich, while documented Poli pieces sell into the thousands, depending heavily on condition and provenance.

Venini Fazzoletto Handkerchief Vases

The fazzoletto, or handkerchief, vase was designed around 1949 by Fulvio Bianconi and Paolo Venini, and its rippling edges look like a silk square frozen in midair. Early examples often used zanfirico or latticino cane, where fine white threads twist through the colored glass.

Venini pieces are usually acid-stamped “venini murano” on the base, though the stamp can be faint. Copies are everywhere, so a clear stamp, even folds and no chips along the fragile rim are what separate a find from a souvenir.

Holmegaard Gulvvase Floor Vases

Per Lütken designed the tall, bottle-shaped Gulvvase for Holmegaard in 1958, and Otto Brauer’s colored versions from the early Nineteen-Sixties made it a Danish modern icon. The cased glass comes in cobalt, red, green, amber and an opal white with a colored interior.

Sizes range from small tabletop versions to floor pieces over two feet tall. The tallest vases sell for several hundred dollars in clean condition, with scratches and base chips pulling the price down fast.

Whitefriars Textured Glass

Geoffrey Baxter’s Textured Range for the London firm Whitefriars, launched in the late Nineteen-Sixties, pressed tree bark, nails and wire into molds to create craggy surfaces in tangerine, kingfisher blue and willow. The Drunken Bricklayer vase, with its lopsided stacked blocks, is the most recognized shape.

Whitefriars glass is generally unmarked, so buyers learn the pattern numbers and colors rather than hunting for signatures. On a sunny windowsill, a single tangerine Baxter vase looks like modern sculpture.

Tamara Aladin Vases for Riihimäki

Tamara Aladin designed some of the most cheerful Finnish glass of the Nineteen-Sixties and Seventies for Riihimäen Lasi, working in molded shapes with ringed or bulging profiles. Her vases came in bright orange, lemon yellow, emerald and deep violet, often in graduated sizes.

Grouped together, they look like a curated design collection rather than a thrift haul. Original pieces sometimes keep their Riihimäki foil label, and smooth, unworn bases help distinguish the vintage run from later imitations.

Oiva Toikka Glass Birds

Oiva Toikka’s glass birds for the Finnish maker Nuutajärvi, later part of Iittala, began appearing in 1972, and hundreds of species and colorways followed over the next four decades. Each bird is hand-shaped, with the designer’s name and often the factory’s etched on the underside.

Some annual or limited editions were produced in tiny numbers. Common birds turn up at estate sales for modest sums, while rare ones fetch strong prices when the condition is perfect and the original box survives.

Mdina Glass From Malta

Michael Harris, a British glass artist, founded Mdina Glass on Malta in 1968, and its early work captured the Mediterranean in thick swirls of sea blue, sand yellow and earthy brown. Heavy, chunky forms such as fish vases and axe-head shapes are characteristic.

Early pieces are sometimes signed “Mdina” in script on the base, occasionally with Harris’s own signature. The glass looks far more expensive than it is, which is why decorators keep an eye out for the classic blue and amber combinations.

Higgins Fused Glass

Michael and Frances Higgins developed a way of fusing and slumping layers of colored enamel and glass into bright bowls, plates and wall pieces, and from 1957 they produced work through Dearborn Glass Company near Chicago. Pieces from that period often carry a gold “higgins” signature on the surface.

The patterns, from bold rays to geometric grids, look like mid-century paintings made in glass. Condition matters most, with scratches and fused-edge chips affecting prices far more than the size of the piece.

Italian Empoli Glass Bottles

The glassworks around Empoli, in Tuscany, produced heavy decorative bottles and apothecary-style jars in olive green, amber and ruby through the middle of the Twentieth Century. The tall genie bottles with elongated stoppers are the best-known form, often sold through American importers.

A cluster of green Empoli bottles on a sideboard catches light like stained glass. Most carry no permanent mark, so shoppers check for bubbles, heavy bases and a stopper that matches the glass color exactly.

Ulrica Hydman-Vallien for Kosta Boda

Swedish artist Ulrica Hydman-Vallien painted vivid enamel faces, snakes, tulips and hearts onto Kosta Boda glass, most famously in the Open Minds series. Her style is instantly recognizable, with loose brushwork and colors that pop against clear or black glass.

Pieces are usually signed and numbered on the base with her name and the Kosta Boda mark. For buyers who want art glass with personality rather than restraint, her work delivers a gallery look at a secondhand price.

Iridescent Carnival Glass

Carnival glass got its oily, rainbow shimmer from metallic salts sprayed onto hot pressed glass, and makers such as Fenton, Northwood and Imperial turned it out by the thousands in the early Twentieth Century. Marigold is the most common color, while deep amethyst, cobalt and rare red command more attention.

Northwood pieces often bear an underlined “N” in a circle. Typical asking prices for common bowls run from about $20 to $80 depending on condition, with rare colors reaching far higher.

Glowing Uranium Glass

Uranium glass, often sold as vaseline glass when it is yellow-green, contains small amounts of uranium oxide that make it fluoresce bright green under ultraviolet light. Victorian candlesticks, Depression-era vases and small dishes all turn up at flea markets.

Collectors carry a pocket black light to confirm it on the spot. Placed on a shelf, the soft chartreuse glass looks like expensive antique crystal, and under a black light at a party it becomes the talk of the room.

Mazzega Murano Mushroom Lamps

The Murano firm Mazzega produced colorful glass table lamps in the Nineteen-Sixties and Seventies, including the dome-topped mushroom lamps designed by Carlo Nason. The shades and bases are often swirled or cased in orange, white and amber, and they glow warmly even when switched off.

Authentic examples feel heavy and have thick, well-finished glass. Rewired originals can sell for several hundred dollars in good condition, so checking for chips around the dome edge is worth the extra minute.

Bitossi Rimini Blu Pottery

Aldo Londi, art director at Bitossi in Montelupo Fiorentino, developed the Rimini Blu line in the Nineteen-Fifties, pairing a deep turquoise glaze with stamped geometric patterns. The pieces were exported widely through the American distributor Raymor, and many still carry a Raymor paper label or an incised “Italy” mark.

Vases, bottle forms and small animal figures all appear. A shelf of Rimini Blu adds instant European sophistication for a fraction of a designer showroom’s cost.

West German Fat Lava Vases

Fat Lava is the collector nickname for the thick, bubbling volcanic glazes made by West German potteries such as Scheurich, Roth and Ruscha in the Nineteen-Sixties and Seventies. Bright orange, red and lime glazes sit over dark bodies in textures that look almost molten.

The bases usually carry impressed shape numbers and often “W. Germany.” Once overlooked, these vases now anchor modern interiors, and dramatic examples with heavy lava glazes attract the most attention from buyers.

Royal Copenhagen Baca Faience

Nils Thorsson designed the Baca series for Royal Copenhagen’s faience division in the Nineteen-Sixties, and the glazes run from burnt orange to olive green and deep blue. The pieces have a hand-painted, almost primitive geometry that looks like studio pottery.

Marks on the base typically include the Royal Copenhagen crown and three wave lines, the Baca name and a painter’s monogram. Larger vases and chargers are prized, and crazing or rim chips affect value significantly.

Rookwood Art Pottery

Rookwood, founded in Cincinnati in 1880, used one of the cleverest dating systems in American pottery. Beginning in 1886, its reversed “RP” monogram gained a flame each year until it carried fourteen in 1900, after which a Roman numeral below the mark gave the year.

Standard glaze, Vellum and later matte production pieces in bright blues and greens all appear on the market. Artist-signed Rookwood can command serious prices, while unsigned production vases remain affordable for everyday decorators.

Van Briggle Pottery

Artus and Anne Van Briggle founded their pottery in Colorado Springs in 1901, and their matte glazes in turquoise, Persian rose and deep blue became hallmarks of the Arts and Crafts movement. The company marked pieces with an interlocking “AA” logo that it kept using for decades.

The Lorelei vase, with a woman wrapped around its rim, remains one of its most famous shapes. Later production pieces are common and affordable, while early dated examples carry a significant premium.

Frankoma Clay Tells

Frankoma Pottery of Sapulpa, Oklahoma, made bright glazes in Prairie Green, Desert Gold and turquoise, and its clay is the collector’s dating secret. Until the mid-Nineteen-Fifties, the pottery used a light tan clay dug near Ada, then switched to a brick-red local clay from Sapulpa. A quick look at an unglazed base tells buyers which era a piece belongs to.

Early Ada clay pieces generally draw more collector interest than later production, provided the glaze is intact.

Royal Haeger Pottery and Lamps

Haeger Potteries of Dundee, Illinois, made dramatic vases, planters and lamps under the Royal Haeger line, a line launched in 1938 with designer Royal Arden Hickman. Glazes such as Mandarin Orange and Chartreuse and sleek animal forms defined the look.

The ceramic lamp bases, often topped with oversized shades, bring a Hollywood Regency glamor to a bedroom or entry. Many pieces carry an incised or stamped Royal Haeger mark or a foil label, and rewired lamps in good condition are especially sought.

Victorian Majolica Jardinieres

Minton introduced its majolica at the Great Exhibition in London in 1851, with Léon Arnoux developing the brilliant lead glazes in turquoise, cobalt and leaf green. Other makers, including George Jones and Wedgwood, followed with leafy jardinieres, garden seats and vases.

George Jones pieces often carry a “GJ” monogram, while Minton pieces may be impressed with date codes. Chips and old repairs are common, so the pieces in the best condition carry the highest premiums.

Mexican Talavera From Puebla

Authentic Talavera from Puebla and Tlaxcala is made under a Mexican designation of origin that requires specific local clays, hand-throwing and a tin-glaze with only certain colors, including cobalt blue, yellow, black, green and orange. Certified workshops sign their work and include a certification mark on the base.

Planters, vases and tiles all turn up in the secondhand market. A single large urn in cobalt and yellow gives a room the look of a Spanish colonial hacienda.

Harris Strong Tile Panels

Harris Strong ran a ceramics studio in the Bronx and later other New York locations beginning in the Nineteen-Fifties, producing framed wall panels made of glazed tiles. Cityscapes, abstract figures and botanical designs in turquoise, orange and gold were sold through upscale department stores and designers.

Panels are often signed in the corner or labeled on the back. They look like expensive commissioned art, and larger pieces in excellent condition can command strong prices.

Charley Harper Serigraphs

Charley Harper’s stylized birds, ladybugs and cardinals made from flat shapes of color are among the most recognized images in mid-century American art. The Cincinnati artist sold limited-edition serigraphs, many published through Frame House Gallery in Louisville from the Nineteen-Seventies.

Original screen prints show layered, slightly raised ink and are hand-signed and numbered in pencil. Later posters and reproductions are affordable, while signed serigraphs in excellent condition bring much stronger prices.

Marushka Screen Prints

Marushka began hand-printing botanical and animal designs in Grand Haven, Michigan, in 1971, and its bold, flat colors on stretched fabric became a Seventies decorating staple. The prints show mushrooms, owls, flowers and abstract patterns in oranges, greens and yellows.

Many are signed “Marushka” in the print, often mounted on wooden frames. A group of three or four vintage Marushka prints creates a gallery wall that looks custom and considered.

Walter Nichols Chinese Art Deco Rugs

American Walter Nichols set up rug workshops in Tianjin, China, in the Nineteen-Twenties, producing Art Deco carpets in magenta, royal blue, jade and apricot. The designs mixed Chinese motifs such as vases and flowers with modern open fields of color.

Many rugs have thick pile, strong color contrast and borders that stand out immediately. Worn pile and moth damage are common, so condition drives price far more than size alone.

Scandinavian Rya Rugs

Rya rugs, with long knotted wool pile, began as Nordic bed covers and became a mid-century design icon. Danish maker Ege Rya and a number of Finnish and Swedish workshops produced abstract rugs in tangerine, turquoise, magenta and mustard during the Nineteen-Sixties.

The rugs work as floor pieces or wall hangings. Labels on the back sometimes identify the maker, and even unlabeled examples with dense pile and saturated color look like expensive art.

Moroccan Boucherouite Rag Rugs

Boucherouite rugs are made from recycled fabric strips, from clothing and household textiles, knotted into shaggy, riotously colorful designs. Women weavers in rural Morocco began making them in greater numbers in the second half of the Twentieth Century when wool became expensive.

No two are alike, and patterns range from loose grids to wild abstractions. In a modern room, a boucherouite rug looks like a piece of contemporary art, with vintage examples carrying more value than new ones.

Color as the Confident Choice

Neutral rooms are safe, but they rarely stop anyone in the doorway. Saturated glass, bright glazes and bold wool send a message that the owner made choices rather than following a showroom.

That impression is what reads as expensive, and it has very little to do with the price paid.

The best part is that the designers behind these pieces were serious about their craft, and their work still holds up decades later. A buyer who learns a few marks and textures can build a room of real design history one shelf at a time.

The color was always the point, and it still is.

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