This vibrant vermillion 1960s living room & foyer got flair from Victorian furniture

Vintage 1960s living room with Victorian-era flair
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From the vermillion living room to the elegant foyer, this 1960s New York home had played-to-the-hilt, marvelously uninhibited color.

The walls were hung in an apricot silk wall-covering flocked in hot vermilion-orange — a color choice inspired by the much softer orange in the rare Fitzhugh porcelain the homeowners collected. (A pagoda-topped Chinese cabinet in the sitting room held a lovely clutch of these treasures.)

A Tabriz rug in the sitting room and two Hamadans in the gallery spread a Persian pattern underfoot in a woven deluge of color. 

Against this background, the Victorian furniture, equally extravagant in style, more than holds its own: Louis XV and Victorian armchairs in the sitting room, Venetian side chairs in the gallery, blackamoors in both rooms.

Vermillion 1960s living room with Victorian-era flair

One of the old ceiling lanterns was French, another ancient Chinese. Over the Chinese table in the gallery hangs a mirror framed in Cathedral silver wrought over black velvet and made centuries ago in Spain — a long way from New York’s Third Avenue where it was rediscovered.

ALSO SEE: A classic Victorian-era look for an elegant 1950s dining room

Like its companions, it is a beautiful curiosity that came home at last to a happy hunting ground.

One wall of the sitting room was mirrored — not from the baseboard, but from the floor itself — to the ceiling. This trick permitted an unbroken flow of reflection: a neat device to double, visually, the size of the room.

In the gallery, the hot flame of the vermilion wallcovering was offset by a white ceiling, dark polished wood flooring, and woodwork painted a quiet glen, half bronze, half olive.

Vintage 1960s living room with Victorian-era flair
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