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tommyflan

Houzz Advent Calendar: December 16th - Win a bowl from LuxDeco!

Tom Flanagan
8 years ago
last modified: 8 years ago

Every home needs something striking and unusual to catch the eye of your guests, so on the 16th day of our Advent Calendar we're giving you just that. Enter the Octopus bowl by LuxDeco! All dressed up in brilliant gold, this porcelain bowl is eight kinds of eye catching design!

To be in with a chance to win, simply tell us what the most unusual item in your home is! Whether it's a second-hand purchase or a family heirloom, we want to hear, just comment below. This competition will run until December 24th.

See terms of conditions here.

Featured Answer
  • msperiwinklejones
    8 years ago

    The tiny full-sized, exact replica of me that I had 3D printed…

    • Comments (88)

    • Kate Burt
      8 years ago

      We have a tiny bespoke mask of Chris Morris's face on our kitchen shelves (it was made for a magazine photoshoot). I like it, but it's kind of creepy.

    • PRO
      Louise Richardson-Vine
      8 years ago

      Either a tall wooden cat from France (named Olivier) or a strange long pipe that my boyfriend picked up in Morocco.

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    • KIRAN CHANNA
      8 years ago

      A globe which doubles as a pensil sharpener underneath - was my grandmas

    • silyab53
      8 years ago
      last modified: 8 years ago

      Oops - forgot the ducks! Over 50 (and counting) BUD DUCKS in my Victorian bathroom. Utterly bonkers, not at all grown up, but I love them all. I sometimes use them for fundraising, with one as a prize. Kids and grown ups seem to love them. My Sister bought me all the Breast Cancer ones - terrific!

      Every home should have some, and not necessarily in the bathroom.

    • ally1320allen
      8 years ago
      My tub of broken china and pipe stems from the kitchen garden of my mid 19th Century Aberdeenshire croft cottage.

      A shot of social history, it shows how people lived and gives insight to where they wanted to be.
    • wringlet
      8 years ago
      Our Elephant Seat. Let me explain - he's a knee-high, solid wood (we think mahogany) little perch found at a thrift store in Brighton. I "visited" him three times in the store before purchasing and hauling him on the train home.
    • rmmul
      8 years ago

      my husband- he's one of a kind!

    • PRO
      Bitsnbats
      8 years ago

      mmm lots to choose from. I think the most unusual might be a base from a hold for making glass whisky bottles. It feels cold and looks like slate though I am unsure of the material and the bottle base shape is triangular - like the old Glenfiddich bottles. I use it as a book end.

    • Karen Godfrey
      8 years ago

      A dinner gong


    • Vicky Jarvis
      8 years ago
      Probably the beautiful handmade trunk of burr teak which my father had made by prisoners in Ceylon after the war. I use it as a coffee table, if I had a pound for the number of offers I have had to buy it I would be a rich woman.
    • Sonia Goul-Wheeker
      8 years ago

      An old antique wooden carved chest we got at an auction, it's very intricately carved and quite striking.

    • clarebulmer
      8 years ago

      At the moment it is my very eclectic Christmas Tree! I always try to bring unusual baubles and decorations back from any country I visit so when it comes to decorating the tree I am taken back to my travels...

    • PRO
      Katy Galbraith, Mosaic Artist
      8 years ago

      Dolly the Burlesque Sheep - one of my earlier mosaics which was part of a challenge to make a 3D sculpture. I used 'an adult party' toy as my first part of the structure… and she is covered in waste materials. I take her, strapped in by a seatbelt in the front of my car, to events where I talk about mosaics made from recycled materials. My husbands wishes that someone will buy her, as he hates her!

    • poppy_fields
      8 years ago

      My grandfather's old miners lamp.

    • kirkysmum
      8 years ago

      An valve from an old-fashioned TV, mounted on a wooden base with a plaque commemorating my dad's retirement from the Philips factory where he worked for 35 years maintaining the machines on which the valves were made.

    • karen6696
      8 years ago
      A gothic chair from the medieval Borthwick castle, which I have sympathetically restored.
    • arzuince
      8 years ago
      It could be the furniture from the 2012 Olympic Village - an athletes locker, enormous 2012 parasols or the benches which are in our garden! Or it could be the wooden giraffe and hippo (which takes 2 men to lift) which a friend who had worked in Africa had shipped back to the uk but they then languished in a garage in north London for years after. We adopted them and now my 3 year old has fun sitting and talking to them!
    • Emma L
      8 years ago
      A fabulous plastic 1980s Brighton railway sign picked up a car boot and hung in the downstairs loo.
    • Joanna Suszko
      8 years ago

      A giant red angry bird sitting on a bookcase in the living room (with a plush kiwi bird on top)

    • Nicky Phillips
      8 years ago
      We have a wooden kris handcrafted by our carpenter friend. We had been on a camping trip and couldn't get the last word on a crossword for the whole 3 days - clue: 'scalloped edge dagger'. Our friend had collected a large stick on one of our walks and when we got back to civilisation googled the clue and crafted a kris for us as a gift (& reminder of our crossword failure!)
    • Shelly Anne
      8 years ago

      Gosh, I've just realised I'm rather boring!. We don't have a lot of room so only special items make it inside, everything else in packed in storage and I can't even remember what I have there. One of my prize possessions though, is a dish I inherited from my Gran. It's Royal Crown Derby like the one in the pic and although not exceptionally old is unusually lavish and really stands out in my modest little home

    • Ambz Aslam
      8 years ago
      A didgeridoo
    • vanessamr
      8 years ago

      A tiny, tiny, tiny old photograph album.

    • susan_whitw
      8 years ago
      Coffee table made from old corrugated iron with a rims top
    • Amber
      8 years ago

      Colour, when you go to other people's houses you realise just how unusual colour is. Thank goodness we don't follow trends.


    • PRO
      Pascal
      8 years ago
      to me its our old wall watch....it has been there b4me and still works fine.
    • Rachel Oakes
      8 years ago

      A vintage picture of the Queen from the '50s which my ex-soldier husband insisted we have.

    • bruket
      8 years ago

      A large brushed stainless steel sculpture that moves as you walk past it. The slightest little movement makes two large rectangular shapes move individually and they never touch each other. I simply love it.

    • marianne_hayton
      8 years ago

      A Harris Tweed Teddy.I bought him 23 years ago when I drove a friend to the Islands for a family emergency .I had a lot of time to myself and came across a small shop in the middle of nowhere ,It was love at first sight ,I just had to buy him.He is my travel companion .

    • Sandi
      8 years ago
      last modified: 8 years ago

      A rather decrepit looking bowl, beige with blue swirls, and crazed, which was left behind by our amah after she was arrested for robbing us all while we were at church. Was of no particular interest to anyone ever and nearly tossed in the rubbish while we were packing to move home. On an off chance for no good reason, other than a niggle in my mind, I took it to the Chinese ceramics expert at a well known museum, who enquired as to how I came by it. Asked me what I knew of the poor amah's family background, which I did know and then informed me that " it is a Ming bowl, and one similar to this sold at Sotheby's recently for £5000".....I felt so sorry for the amah. She had the treasure in her hands all the time.

    • Clio Bee
      8 years ago
      Bag of animal skins :-s
    • Zoe Woodward
      8 years ago

      a life size replica Chinese Terracotta warrior. That has moved with me numerous times and still finds a suitable place in any home!

    • User
      8 years ago

      Wow, Sandi!

    • Sarah Williams
      8 years ago

      A massive golden Buddha head

    • L W
      8 years ago

      the most unusual things are those in my son's bedroom - a police hat, a gas mask, the Police Aware notice from his first car accident (a write-off).

    • ktwhitelily
      8 years ago

      my boyfriend (joke), a large wall hanging featuring a patch of each of all the animal phylla

    • Pauline Giroux
      8 years ago
      An old alcohol barrel used as a side table, with a gigantic bottle of champagne that my parents drank at their weddings and turned into a lamp. It's a sentimental piece!
    • klwinters76
      8 years ago

      A nest of tables which belonged to my parents from the 70's. They've been painted many colors and are currently antique white.

    • Ali Parkin
      8 years ago
      All of our things are suitably random but I think I'd have to suggest either the bronze duck watering can with holes in it that my brother gave me for Christmas a couple of years ago or the 4ft print of my partner that a friend used as her final photography piece for her degree and then gave to us!
    • PRO
      Yasmin Chopin Interior Design
      8 years ago
      Porcelain? Wow! This bowl is very special. The quirkiest thing I have in the house is a small scale half barrel. An heirloom. Hate it but 'not allowed' to part with it. Not something you can easily hide!
    • PRO
      Big Bright Moon
      8 years ago

      A Russian Samovar

    • bombel1972
      8 years ago

      a fake zebra head

    • Sharan Brom
      8 years ago

      Original stag head shot by my great grandfather and stuffed. Really scarey!

    • Valerie
      8 years ago

      a little wooden children's chair that my children call "granny's granny's chair" as it was hand-made for my mother-in-law's grandmother

    • pencoo
      8 years ago
      3 hummingbirds hanging over my bathroom window. They make me smile in the mornings.
    • sarkie
      8 years ago

      A mailbox container for a set of flats, so even though there are only 2 people in our house... we have enough room for when the cats get mail too.

    • Micheala Yelland
      8 years ago

      a piece of industrial metal waste that looks like a birds face called spike

    • paddyart
      8 years ago

      A Rhino foot impression

    • Kel
      8 years ago
      My coffee table is a fire hose reel, set on casters. It's portable, you can swivel the reel around on the casters, it has a bottom shelf that has a groove for pens, and the top is already divided into sections for my coasters. What more could a girl ask for?!
    • Tom Flanagan
      Original Author
      8 years ago

      Hi everyone!

      Thanks for all the comments and input, it was great to see so many of you get involved! The competition is now closed, and any winners should have received an email from us confirming their prize so get checking.

      Happy New Year and here's to the next one!

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