Quality Equestrian Home Décor

Getting the Perfect Equestrian Look For Your Home

Interior design featuring equestrian-themed objects bring a singular style to a person's home. The grace and power of a horse rearing up, the history and mythology of the American cowboy, the common beauty of horse artworks from around the world and the very fabric of the old and new West becomes part of daily life.

Whether you chose to surround yourself with linens and tableware depicting galloping horses, or to accent your living room with a pair of equine bookends, there are many well-organized websites for the horse enthusiast.

Some of the most comprehensive places to shop for products for your home are companies that also sell riding gear, clothing, and toys and jewelry with an equestrian theme. Products for the bedroom, kitchen, living room and bathroom abound at Back in the Saddle, where there is an extensive collection of everydayfurnishings like bed coverings, towels, bookends, glassware and pillows, with more than 60 designs for the bedroom and 50 for the bathroom.

Among the more unusual household items at Back in the Saddle are drawer pulls; flatware, with matching serving utensils; and a winerack made from a pyramid of horseshoes.

Some of the designs are quite bold and modern, including the "The Dance" tile mural, and a set of signed prints by Anne Webb, who paints rescued horses and donates a portion of the sale to rescue organizations.

The St. Croix Saddlery, the Tack Room and Horses in the House are other websites offering a wide variety of equestrian décor and collectibles, although each has strengths in different rooms of the house. St. Croix Saddlery shows well in the kitchen, with a generous selection of coasters, mugs and tumblers, as well as tk items like a thermos and a delicate pewter wine stopper.

St. Croix also offers wind chimes, clocks, sun catchers and signs.

The Tack Room is one of several sites for riding equipment and clothing that sells furnishings and decorative objects, including some large pieces of furniture. There are several chairs and couches in the furniture section, as well as a selection of rugs.

The Tack Room offers decorative objects like vases, jewelry boxes, lamps, door knockers, stationary products and picture frames, as well as a large selection of brass sculptures. They also feature several less common gifts like a horseshoe trivet, cookie jars and bottle openers.

Horses in the House has a fair selection of kitchen and bath items, and some decorative objects like picture frames and wall hooks, but their most exciting offering is a breathtaking series of painted ponies in their home accents section. Painted ponies are ceramic or resin figurines decorated in a variety of designs, motifs and colors. They are mostly made by Native Americans and artists living in the West.

Some of the artists have created designs based on traditional Indian weavings or spiritual fetishes, others on icons like the cowboy boot or Stone Age cave drawings. For people who fall in love with painted ponies and want to find more, some of the specialty websites that sell traditional and whimsical models are The Trail of Painted Ponies, which offers large scale artworks and figurines, and Music City Cards and Gifts, which has more than 125 figurines.

Horse lovers who wish to decorate their own piece of the great outdoors can find some unusual objects by searching for "horse" at OutdoorDecor.com. This site has a dozen horse weathervanes as well as outdoor wall paintings, which are hung like canvases and are weatherproof.

Other outdoor products can be found at The Tack Room, which has garden spinners and flags, and at Back in the Saddle, which has door knockers, statuary and even a topiary garden horse.

Fine artworks, folk art and decorative objects with an equine theme are abundantly available for collectors and homeowners looking for something unusual and simply beautiful. The largest and most diverse category of artworks is sculpture, which ranges in style from the painted ponies at Horses in the House to classic sculptures that recall the works of Frederic Remington to contemporary abstract works.

Giftsprings has sculptures in the classical style, with various historic figures astride horses (search for "horse"), and several of the artworks found at The Tack Room evoke traditional American equine styles.

For modern and abstract sculptures, collectors can go to Novica, which features artworks from around the world. These horses, in full figure or bust, reflect the style and culture of the individual artists, and are alternatingly earthly and sublime, delicate and powerful.

More artworks can be found at CollectiblesToday.com, which features sculptures and paintings on porcelain, and at The Tack Room, which has traditional prints, circular wall hangings, metal cutouts and some unusual images on slate.

For equine prints of a decidedly contemporary and international flavor, art lovers can again visit Novica.

There are several places to look for objects that if not quite fine art, are different from everyday tabletop objects and quite beautiful. Collectibles Today has several glass and ceramic carousel music boxes in different historic styles, as well as individual carousel horses from reproduction quality to whimsical.

Rocking Horse Depot sells rocking horses, which can add a lighter touch to a room with Western dcor, and Horses in the House has a diverse collection of throws, which can be used on couches and beds or hung on the wall. They will even customize a throw with the horse of your choice.

A love of horses and collecting equine objects knows no boundaries of style or age, and there are ample choices for children. Uncommon Goods has fun works which are also fine collectibles, as does Horses in the House.

And, Crazy Horse Tack and Gift Shop has some gifts for children that are just plain fun.

Finally, there are gifts for those horse lovers that seem to have everything. Again, Novica is an excellent destination for unique artworks, with everything from a bench that evokes the saddle to delicate candleholders.

SmartPak, which mostly sells equine supplements and gear, has an unusual pair of equine boxes, one a tiny rosewood delicacy and the other a large tack trunk.

Salt and pepper shakers come in all breeds of stallion and mare, and they also make unique gifts. Among the sites that carry horse shakers are the Silver Fox Gallery, which specializes in studio art; Pacific Products Gallery, which has other horse items; Montana Gift Corral, whose characters, Ellie and Elmer, have their own product line; and, stretching the genre a bit with, well, Sea Horse shakers, Distinctive-Décor.com.

Finally, it does well to end with a little advice for horse lovers, and lovers everywhere: Take Life By the Reins.

© 2008 Equestrian Home Décor