Channel tufting, lacquer finishes, mirrored surfaces.

Jewel-tone velvets, silks, polished cottons.

Crystal chandeliers, gilded sconces, lacquered lamps. Black silk or metallic shades.

High-pile wool, silk blends, geometrics, black and gold motifs.

Polished stone, herringbone parquet, lacquered wood.

Polished brass, chrome, gold leaf.

Lacquered walls, metallic wallpapers, geometric inlays.

Glamour, luxury, rich, exotic, symmetrical, ornate, high-contrast

• Pattern in this style is geometric and it climbs: chevrons, zigzags, fans, fluting and stepped setbacks that create a sense of upward movement, with the sunburst as a motif too.
• Symmetry matters.
• Rooms and facades are balanced on a center line.
• Color is high contrast, black against white or cream with gold accents, and the 1930s added tropic green, forest green, robin blue and jade.
• The big surfaces carry sheen more than print: veneer figure, lacquer, polished stone and metal leaf do the work, and paint on the walls stays pale.
• One metallic wallpaper or one marquetry panel is enough per room.
• If a room reads soft, mirrored and loose, it has drifted to Hollywood Regency; keep it harder edged and more structured than that.

• The style calls for a floor that is smooth and graphic.
• Terrazzo was the period floor.
• It overtook mosaic in the early 1920s and is named on Deco and Moderne buildings for its smooth finish and clean lines.
• Baths took colorful tile floors in bold geometry, and a black and white checkerboard still reads right.
• A walnut herringbone with a walnut border is a strong wood option.
• It lays on 45 degree working lines with 3 inch slats cut to a multiple of their width, and installers plan on at least 15 percent waste.
• Treat herringbone as a current choice, not a period one.
• Avoid: rustic wide plank, hand scraped texture, and gray washed oak.

• Tile does the drama in a bath.
• The style calls for one glittering surface, like a gold mosaic alcove behind the tub, and a field of bright or pastel tile paired with black accent tile.
• Pigmented structural glass in black, jade or green was the 1930s wall skin for kitchens and baths, and today a polished black glass or black tile panel gives the same look.
• Stylized aquatic and floral motifs were popular, and a scallop tile like Fireclay's Ogee Drop can carry that idea.
• Mosaic tile also appears as an exterior wall finish on period buildings.
• Avoid: subway tile in white with gray grout, wood look plank tile, and busy marble mosaics.

• Cabinet faces are flat and polished.
• Lacquer in this style is built in a dozen thin layers and polished to a flat, mirror like surface.
• Bird's eye maple veneer was the pale choice and Macassar ebony the dark one.
• Ebony veneer is dense, dulls tools and is listed as vulnerable, so many shops use it as a veneer only.
• Built-ins in the Cunard manner have smooth veneered surfaces, often with curved ends.
• Keep the door plain and let the veneer figure or the lacquer sheen be the pattern.
• Avoid: raised panel doors, glazed finishes, open grain stains, and visible hinges.

• Hardware is small and stepped.
• Emtek's Art Deco Collection has geometric stepped knobs and pulls with optional matching backplates, and its Deco Cabinet Knob is stepped clear glass on a brass base in 1 1/4 and 1 5/8 inch.
• House of Antique Hardware carries an octagonal Deco knob from the 1930s and a rounded Streamline Deco knob.
• Polished chrome and polished nickel are the period bath metals, and polished or unlacquered brass is the warm option.
• Pick one bright metal per room.
• Avoid: oil rubbed bronze, matte black everywhere, cup pulls, and long bar pulls.

• Polished chrome is the fitting finish the period baths used, with frosted glass shades and frameless mirrors beside it.
• One bath can go further: Eltham's has gold plated taps and a curved onyx wrapped tub in front of a gold tiled alcove.
• A sunken tub in a raised platform is a period plan that still works.
• Colored fixtures came in during the late 1920s, so a black or deep green fixture can be in character.
• Avoid: brushed finishes, farmhouse sinks, bridge faucets, and clawfoot tubs.

• Light in this style comes through glass.
• Period baths used streamlined fixtures with frosted glass shades, and Eltham's entry hall is lit by a glass dome.
• A current piece that names the style is the Visual Comfort Iveala sconce by AERIN, a round alabaster shade in polished nickel or hand rubbed antique brass.
• Alabaster is a natural stone and its color varies.
• A stepped wall sconce picks up the stepped forms in the hardware and ceilings.
• Avoid: recessed cans as the main light, industrial cages, and rattan or linen drums.

• The surround is black stone with a plain face.
• Chesneys cuts The Brooklyn in Portoro Gold, a black marble with gold veins quarried only at Porto Venere, and The Stirling in Nero Marquina, a black Basque limestone with strong white veining that shows most when polished.
• Eltham used electric fires with artificial logs, so a flush electric or gas insert with no hearth clutter is in period.
• Keep the opening rectangular and the surround stepped or flat.
• Avoid: stacked stone, a wood mantel shelf with corbels, and arched openings.

• Windows run in horizontal bands with decorative spandrels, and Moderne houses bend the glass around a rounded corner.
• Glass block panels bring light into a stair or bath without a view.
• Inside, the period bath mirror is frameless, round or vertical.
• Keep window treatments plain so the glass and the wall veneer lead.
• Avoid: divided lites in a colonial grid, arched tops, and heavy swagged drapery.

• Black stone with gold or white veins is the style's stone.
• Portoro has a black base with thin white calcite veins and wider yellow veins; the best slabs show a bright black ground with intense gold.
• Nero Marquina is a black limestone sold as marble, with white veining.
• Onyx is translucent and is often lit from behind, and Eltham's bath is lined with it.
• Portoro, Nero Marquina and onyx are calcareous, so acids like lemon or vinegar can dull or etch them, and sealing helps with stains but does not make the stone stain proof.
• Many fabricators suggest neutral cleaners.
• Avoid: speckled granite, busy white quartz patterns, and rough or leathered finishes.

• Doors are flat, dark and decorated.
• Eltham's dining room doors are black lacquer with a Greek key border and four gold animals.
• They read as black and silver, with animals and birds.
• The period casing is reeded or fluted, and entrances carry low relief panels.
• Keep the slab flush and put the ornament in the surround or in one inlaid motif.
• Avoid: six panel colonial doors, barn doors, and arched doors.

• Wallpaper is geometric and metallic.
• Bradbury and Bradbury prints Volute, a geometric pattern in gold and brown, Havana with repeating fan shapes in Ebony, Mahogany or Platinum, Stardust from the Chrysler Building's Cloud Club, and Aeroplane.
• Thibaut's Deco Moon comes in gold, silver, rose gold and gilver, and Cole and Son makes a Deco Palm.
• Use it on one wall or a powder room and let veneer carry the main rooms.
• Avoid: florals, toile, grasscloth as the main wall, and damask.

• Walls at Eltham were painted in pale colors, so the deep tones go on trim, doors, one room, or built-ins.
• The black is Farrow and Ball Pitch Black No. 256, Benjamin Moore Black 2132-10 or Sherwin-Williams Tricorn Black SW 6258.
• The navy is Benjamin Moore Hale Navy HC-154 and the blue green is Farrow and Ball Hague Blue No. 30.
• The green is Farrow and Ball Studio Green No. 93 or Benjamin Moore Hunter Green 2041-10.
• The pale wall is Farrow and Ball Pointing No. 2003.
• The 1930s glass colors, tropic green, forest green, robin blue, jade and suntan, are a good guide to accent tones.
• Avoid: greige, gray on gray, and sage.

• Ceilings are designed as part of the room.
• Eltham's dining room has a coffered ceiling finished in aluminium leaf, and its entry hall has a glass dome.
• A stepped ziggurat niche over a tub, faced in black and ice blue tile, is a period bath ceiling.
• Elsewhere the ceiling stays smooth and pale so the metallic one reads.
• Avoid: beams, tongue and groove planks, and popcorn or heavy texture.

• The wall is the showpiece.
• Eltham's entry hall is lined in blackbean veneer with intarsia panels, the dining room in bird's eye maple, and the bedroom suite has sycamore veneered pilasters with marquetry.
• The period alternative is pigmented structural glass in black, green or jade, fixed to the wall with mastic.
• Native and exotic woods on the wall were the rule on the ground floor, with pale paint above and between.
• Avoid: shiplap, board and batten, chair rails, and faux finishes.

• Furniture has clean lines, little applied decoration, and the richest surfaces.
• Ruhlmann's writing table is Macassar ebony veneer over mahogany with a tooled calf leather top.
• Eileen Gray's screen is black lacquer with silver leaf geometry.
• Eltham's bedrooms are built-in suites with curved ends, and its dining room seats 14 in pink leather at a bird's eye maple and walnut table.
• Chrome tube furniture by Deskey fits the period too.
• Avoid: tufted roll arm sofas, farmhouse tables, and matched suites in oak.

• Leather comes first: tooled calf on a desk, pink leather on dining chairs.
• A woven geometric like the Cooper Lace jacquard based on Bradbury's Volute carries the pattern.
• Wool is the rug fiber.
• Avoid: linen slipcovers, burlap, and ikat.

• The period rug is hand knotted wool with a bold stylized motif.
• The V and A's Marion Dorn rug, made by Wilton Royal Carpet Factory about 1936, has a wavy blue ribbon crossed by ears of wheat on a cream ground and is signed in the pile.
• Eltham's entry hall rug was recreated from the original.
• A plain cream ground with one large motif reads more Deco than an allover geometric.
• Avoid: Persian and Oriental patterns, shag, and jute.