Home decoration ideas for expats in Brazil

Bhavna wrote:

Hello,

After moving to Brazil, setting up home and turning your accommodation into your personal abode can be a great way to start off your new life and feel at home. We would like to know whether expats are keen on decorating and furnishing to warm up their space whether for the festive season or all year-round.

Upon renting a new apartment or house in Brazil, do you redesign your accommodation to suit your taste? Are your choices influenced by price, climate, etc?

Have you brought any interior decoration items from your home country or did you consider buying any once in Brazil?

As an expat in Brazil do you find it worthy to invest in home decor? Could you share what you have bought and perhaps some interesting places to shop for home decor?

How would you describe the local style of decoration? Have you picked up any item which reflects the local style?

Would you be inspired by the festive season to decorate and add a festive touch to your living space?

Thank you for sharing your experience,

Bhavna

I just completed all the lights and decorations for Christmas at home yesterday. I buy decors for my home at anyplace I find them especially from touristy places like Gramado, RS. Well, 1.99 stores are everywhere in Brazil and there´s abundance of cheap decorations and other electronic devices that come from China. I guess that would complete the repertoire as needed.

From fridge to re-tile pool and new storage (why no closets in BR?) and painting. I have updated a lot.
One day a hot tub..............

We bought a unit on the top floor of an iconic high-rise in Central Manaus, completed in 1972.  The construction is solid, the views are fantastic, the rooms are much bigger, and the ceilings are much higher than we saw in any recent construction.  The living room and each of the three bedrooms have their own balconies.  But the apartment had been a rental for a long time, and desperately needed upgrading.  It was in renovations for two and a half months.

We replaced all the windows.  We replaced the entire electrical delivery system.  The kitchen had three single-receptacle outlets, and no other room had more than one.  Only the Master Bedroom was wired for air conditioning, one of the other bedrooms was jury-rigged for it, but neither worked.  Only the master bath was wired for an electric shower.  Now, we have modern, energy efficient air conditioning in all three bedrooms, electric showers in the master and guest baths, new ceiling fans in all rooms.  The kitchen has eight double outlets, with proportional increases throughout.  We replaced 50-75% of the plumbing, including all fixtures, and caught some disasters before they happened, like the drain pipe from the powder room sink that went into the wall -- and stopped, not connected to anything.  Fortunately for the neighbors below, that sink was rarely used!  Now, it's connected.  We sanded and refinished all the parquet floors.

We were able to save most of the beautiful vintage tile in the kitchen and bathrooms.  One great discovery was that all the built-ins, which had been painted over and we almost had ripped out, were muiracatiara underneath the paint, a beautiful Amazonian hardwood (sometimes called "tigerwood" in English) that must have been common in the 1970s, but is rare today, framed with mahogany.  We had them restored instead.

Since we don't have live-in help and don't plan to, we had shelving built and converted what was intended as a maid's bedroom into a storage room and pantry, helping -- but not completely solving -- the closet space problem that Tex mentioned.

After that, it was just cosmetic repairs, painting throughout, moving in a combination of my art collection and some furniture from the US, and things we bought here.  And getting down to Happily Ever After. 

We go all out for Christmas decorations -- tree, Crib, stockings, the works.  Unfortunately, I can't figure out how to post pictures here.   If I could, I would.