In my first Dolce Vita Home post, we talked all about how to create a home that feels like a dolce vita home—and why cultivating that feeling is often even more important than how your home looks.
If you haven’t read that one yet, I suggest starting there. You can find it here.
Today, I’m sharing part two of that article, and this one’s all about the Dolce Vita Home Aesthetic.
We’ll explore key Italian interior elements commonly found in homes across Italy, no matter their size or location. My goal is to help you bring those same touches into your own home, so you can easily add that authentic dolce vita aesthetic you love.
Perhaps we could even consider this the start of my Italian Interiors series.
If that excites you, please give this post a heart and share it with a few friends who love their homes as much as you do.
Now, let’s dig into this yummy topic.
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Table of Contents
10 Key Italian Decor Elements To Add Into Your Home
If I were to list ten elements you easily find in many Italian homes, whether they are regular apartments or large villas, these would be them.
For each one, I will tell you how I have recreated into my own home, and how you can too. I will also try to give you a few ideas, although we can explore each topic further into its own separate post.
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1. Marble
I am listing this as number one because it’s the first material I think of when it comes to an Italian house. I love marble, so maybe I am not the most objective, but I think you can agree that marble is tied to Italian identity, not just as a building material but as a symbol of artistry, and luxury.
Italy has been one of the most important centers of marble production and artistry since forever. The Colosseum, Pantheon, and countless Roman temples incorporated Italian marble, making it synonymous with classical beauty and durability.
My personal favorite also happens to be the most popular. It’s the famous Carrara marble. Did you know that this variety of marble comes from the city of Carrara, located near the Apuan Alps in Tuscany? The Davide by Michelangelo was made out of a block of Carrara marble.
Italians love marble in kitchens, bathrooms, stairs, but also as a decorative touch.
Other than the Carrara marble, these are the most popular types of marble in Italian homes:
- Calacatta, especially the Cremo with the cream base and brownish vein. This is a great contemporary option.
- Statuario – more of a white base than the Carrara with a larger and more dramatic grey vein. This is perfect for more modern homes.
- Rosso di Verona – a red Italian marble with warmer tones and lighter veins. This is a more niche type of marble, but if you love it, it can be a good option for flooring, fireplaces, and even kitchens.
- Perlato di Sicilia – a beige marble with warm golden undertones and scattered fossil-like pearl patterns. This is very popular for flooring and countertops, especially in ceramic and porcelain tiles.
- Bardiglio – a grey marble with fine to bold white veining, ranging from soft silver to deep charcoal tones. This can feel both classic and modern, depending on how it’s used.
- Botticino – a creamy beige marble with subtle veining and a soft, elegant uniform appearance. This is very popular for flooring, especially in ceramic and porcelain tiles.
If you’re wondering why Travertine and Granite didn’t make it onto that list, it’s because those are not technically marble. However, they are probably the most popular stone material used in Italy. My grandma had granite in her kitchen, and so did my mum. They both had a dark style, but the lighter version is more popular nowadays.
How I am using marble in my own home:
Let me start by telling you about all the places you will find marble in my home, and it’s a mix of Carrara and Calacatta. Perhaps, it can inspire your home renovations.
I have Carrara in my stairs, in aperture seals, throughout my kitchen – both as countertops and backsplash, and on my bed side tables. It’s all real marble, except the one on my bed side tables.
As for Calacatta, it’s a Cremo porcelain large tiles version, and it’s throughout the walls of my ensuite bathroom.
That might not seem like a lot, but when you live in a three bedroom apartment, it really takes center stage, which is exactly what I was after.
How to add marble into your home:
Don’t let this post discourage you. If you don’t have any plans of buying a new home, or renovating your current one, there are so many ways you can add marble into your home.
Let me list a few for you.
1. Add a marble table top onto your kitchen, dining, garden, or coffee table. It’s equally gorgeous on top of vanity tables, sideboards, and other furniture pieces.
2. Keep it in mind for your next bathroom renovation.
3. Buy small marble side tables.
4. Buy marble style accessories – like soap dispensers, rolling pins, marble mortars, trays, coasters, other tableware, lamps, statues, vases, and other small decorative pieces.
2. Tiled Flooring
From ancient Roman mosaics to Renaissance palaces, Italy has a deep history of using tiles for both practicality and decoration.
Italians use everything from marble tiles (like Botticino, Carrara, and Rosso Verona) to terracotta, ceramic, and porcelain tiles, depending on the region and style.
In Tuscany and Umbria, rustic terracotta tiles are common in farmhouses.
In Southern Italy, hand-painted ceramic tiles in bright patterns decorate both floors and walls.
In northern Italy, wooden floors are more widespread but tiled floors are still preferred, especially when it comes to kitchens and wetter areas of the home.
These are the reasons why Italians, especially in the South, prefer tiling as the main flooring material:
Climate – Italy has hot summers, and tiled floors (marble, terracotta, ceramic, porcelain) stay cool, making homes more comfortable. Wooden floors, by contrast, retain heat.
Durability – Tiles resist wear, scratches, and moisture better than wood, especially in kitchens and entryways where Italians spend a lot of time cooking and gathering.
Heritage – Italy has a long tradition of tile craftsmanship (from Roman mosaics to hand-painted ceramics), so tiles are both a cultural and aesthetic choice.
Maintenance – Tiles are easier to clean and maintain than wood, especially in Mediterranean living.
Design – Italians love tiles for their variety: elegant marble, rustic terracotta, or colorful ceramics — each giving homes a distinctly Italian character.
How I am using tiles in my own home:
I have always loved the look of wooden floors over tiles. So much so that I have this big pet peeve – I can’t stand a very wide grout line or one which doesn’t match the tiles perfectly. As I was growing up, I imagined my home having dark wooden floors, but when I got closer in age to finishing my home, I became obsessed with Scandinavian interiors, so I ended up choosing medium-light wooden floors for my home.
But that’s not all..
Even though I love the look of wooden floors, I also know they are not practical when you live in the Mediterranean. The humidity will easily cause the wood to rot with time, and that’s not something I am after. That’s why I opted for a tiled version of wooden floors. I don’t remember the exact terms, but I think it is a gres-porcelanato wooden style floors.
As I already mentioned, I have large Calacatta marble-style tiles in my ensuite. My other main bathroom is not my best interior decor decision. I went for a very Mediterranean look, mixing Sicilian Majolica style floor tiles with a very simple beige tile for the walls. The look is really nice and unique, but if I could go back, I would stick to Calacatta marble tiles, or perhaps Carrara tiles for my main bathroom. The reason being is that a classic never bores you, and even when it comes to selling your home, it makes it easier for buyers to like something classic over a unique design. You are welcome to learn from my mistakes.
The only other tiles in my home are the exterior ones. I chose a very Mediterranean looking tile, but opted for grey over the more popular beige option. That’s because in my 20s I was obsessed with grey. It’s matte, uneven, with different subtle veins, and I still love it. It’s not marble, and it reminds me of concrete, which gives it that subtle modern feel while still looking classic.
How you can add the tiled flooring look to your home:
I know that foreigners love this aspect of Italian homes, so much so that they often want to retain any original tiles in the Italian homes they buy, or try to recreate that look in their own homes.
I also understand that flooring is not the easiest thing to change into your home. So perhaps only consider this section if you are about to buy a new home, you just did, or you are renovating you current one.
If you are set on changing your flooring to Italian-style tiles, perhaps, you could start with the exterior of your home, and change the tiles in your patio or your terrace. Maybe, the kitchen and the laundry room could be next, and after that the bathrooms.
If you are thinking of adding tiles as your kitchen backsplash, let me tell you that’s not a very Italian thing, unless you go with the grandma style tiles that were popular many years ago. My grandma and mum both had them in their kitchens. I am not very familiar with that style because I have only ever considered marble.
Of course, you can find them in Italian homes but it’s those homes that are inspired by American and other European countries’ interior styles. I would personally choose a slab of marble every day.
3. Exposed Wooden Beams
Many Italian homes, especially older ones and farmhouse styles, have exposed wooden beams. These are especially popular in Rome, Tuscany, Emilia Romagna, and Northern Italy. But you can also find them in farmhouses in Southern Italy.
If you like that look, you don’t need to have a farmhouse style home to recreate it. It’s easy to add a few wooden beams – real or not, in your living room, or anywhere else in your home.
One place I like to look at for Italian home inspiration is @spazibelli on Instagram. They often share home design projects featuring beams, and my favorite one yet is one they shared in Rome.
Other than beams, other interior details you can add to your home that feel Italian include these other ones:
- Terracotta bricks exteriors, inspired by Emilia Romagna homes.
- Terracotta tiled brick walls on a feature wall inside.
- Terracotta bricks covered arches.
- Marble covered arches.
- Wooden covered arches.
- Stucco walls
- Ceilings and walls with painted frescos
4. A Beautiful Kitchen
Little Alessia wouldn’t believe you if you told her she would get to write about kitchens on her blog, even though she was already pretending to write a book at 7 years old.
Kitchens have always been my passion. I used to tear out the pages of magazines when I was little and save them in a drawer in my bedroom. My parents would ask me why I did that, and I would answer that it’s for inspiration for when I get older and design my own kitchen.
That day finally came and I got to design many iterations of my dream kitchen – both modern and more classic options, but I will tell you more about it in the section about my home.
For now let’s talk about how a kitchen is truly the centre of an Italian home, because of how important food is within Italian life.
Italians dedicate a lot of time, thought, and budget to designing and building their own kitchens. And I can say that’s true both for residential and rental properties, because I see it every time I choose an Airbnb for my travels.
Of course, you’ll find many older houses in Italy that have old kitchens, but they are well loved kitchens, that were once the star of the home in terms of design, and still are its heart.
My parents still have their old walnut wood kitchen with the classic Italian cabinets and the dark granite stone countertops. And that shows that quality and spending more to start with always pay off.
It’s not just the kitchen cabinets that need to be good quality for Italians, but equally so the countertop materials, the appliances, the pots, and all the other kitchen essentials.
Of course, many younger Italians are now choosing Ikea kitchens, and while there’s nothing wrong about that, I can’t speak about their quality. I guess they would make a great starter kitchen before you are ready to invest in your high quality one.
We’ll definitely get to speak about kitchen design choices in a separate post, where I can share a few Italian kitchen ideas to inspire your own.
For now, all I am going to tell you is that if you can, I urge you to splurge on your kitchen, while still keeping your budget in check. That’s what I did and I never regretted it.
A little about my Italian Kitchen
I have always wanted a white kitchen, and growing up Scavolini was one of the most popular and famous brands. While I did consider many other designs, including non Italian ones, that’s what I ended up choosing, and I don’t regret it.
I initially thought I wanted a very modern minimalist design, and after many design iterations of my own and the kitchen showroom designers, I decided to consider a more classic evergreen kitchen, inspired by the first kitchen I had ever pinned on my personal Pinterest.
Scavolini Favilla gave me a similar look for the best quality and price, and that’s what I went for.
How do you build an Italian kitchen
If you are buying your kitchen from a showroom, and not having a carpenter build it, the best suggestion I can give you is to visit the Italian kitchen showrooms available in your country. My favourite Italian kitchen brands are Scavolini, Lube, and Veneta Cucine. There are many more, like Ernestomeda and Boffi.
If they don’t fit your budget (I’m not sure if their price is higher in the US than it is in Italy), take the opportunity to learn about the different Italian style kitchens, see what you like, and keep it in mind for when you visit other local kitchen showrooms. The same could apply when working with a carpenter. You can share with him pictures of kitchens you like, and see how you can recreate a similar design that meets your needs and lifestyle.
If you are young and Ikea is your only option for now, Axstad and Enkoping styles are very similar to mine in terms of cabinet design. You would need to pick the white/cream option. For a more traditional looking dark brown Italian kitchen, the brown Enkoping style is a good look.
And for those of you looking for a more modern style, many of the modern kitchens in the Italian Ikea online store have an Italian feel mixed with Scandinavian design. I would suggest you visit an Italian Ikea online store. I usually type Ikea Catania on Google, but you might need a VPN on, set in Italy, to access that.
5. High Quality Furniture
Italians, especially those who can afford it, value high quality wooden furniture over other cheaper options.
In classic and older homes you will find antique wooden furniture pieces that would work beautifully also in more modern homes, especially if you love mixing old and new.
I must say that one thing I have never liked about Italian interiors, at least the old way of doing it, is that each room would have one look for all the furniture, and every piece of furniture in that room would be the same design, color, and finish. I find that too old, and boring. You can say it’s another pet peeve of mine, when it comes to interiors.
I have always loved mixing and matching furniture, and while I don’t have a lot of furniture in my home, because I like a more minimalist look and feel, the furniture I have is not matchy. It goes together but I have chosen and purchased it separately throughout the years.
So, if there’s one thing I would tell you not to copy from Italian interiors is the matchy matchy furniture look, unless you really love it.
When I think of high quality Italian furniture, I think of my parents’ furniture. Their living and dining room furniture has truly stood the test of time. After 40 years, it is still looking as new, gorgeous, and shiny as it looked on the first day.
I will reiterate the concept that paying a little more for your home always pays off.
6. Large Dining Tables
Whether it’s in the kitchen, the dining room, or the terrace, Italians love having big dining tables they can use to seat all their family and friends for lunches and dinners.
A very simple way to add an Italian touch to your kitchen, or dining room, is to add a long wooden dining table. Wood is both a great contemporary and modern look. But if you like a more classic style, consider doing like my parents and having a shiny wooden table and chairs set, with a long marble table top.
7. Fabrics
Have you ever heard of the term dowry, and if so, is it part of your culture? In Italy, it has always been a very important part of marriages, especially in the past, although still very much a custom in Southern Italy, especially in Sicily.
La dote, as we call it in Italy, looks a little different in Sicily than what it might look elsewhere in the world.
The Sicilian dote was often centered around textiles for the new household, especially the bedroom, rather than money. It could include:
- Bed linens – sheets, pillowcases, blankets, and embroidered spreads.
- Table linens – tablecloths, napkins, and doilies.
- Personal items – lingerie, handkerchiefs, and sometimes decorative fabric items.
- Decorative or embroidered pieces – for display in the home as a sign of the bride’s family wealth, skill, and taste.
Beyond providing practical items for the new home, the dote also demonstrated the family’s status and the bride’s domestic skills, which were highly valued in traditional Sicilian society (and still kind of are).
I am telling you about this Italian custom because it ties to the importance of fabrics in Italian homes. Whether it’s a lace tablecloth, a beautiful classic curtain, vintage doilies, or more modern high quality cotton bed sheets and towels, Italians value beautiful fabrics.
You can see that in their kitchens through nice tea towels, table napkins, chair seat cushions, etc; in their living rooms through ornate cushion covers, curtains, and even tapestry, depending on the style of the home. Of course, that extends to the other rooms in the house.
While Italians don’t always do that, if that makes you feel closer to Italy, you could pick a theme and add it throughout your home. I will share how I am doing that this year.
Italian fabrics in my home and how you can do the same
Because of my more minimalist style, I don’t go crazy with fabrics. I don’t use tablecloths. I prefer blinds over curtains. And I keep the cushions to a minimum. However, this year I have started introducing a Sicilian blue ceramic theme in my home – for now, primarily in my living room and kitchen. I have added pillow covers with that theme on my chairs and sofa, vases on my dining table and kitchen countertops, and I have even introduced the design in a few plates and other kitchenware.
You can do the same with the blue ceramic theme, or perhaps the Italian lemons theme, or a Tuscan scene theme.
Other than that, I make sure I am using high quality bed sheets and bathroom towels, and that is obviously tied to the importance of quality over quantity within the Italian culture, but also because you should take care of your skin, and those things come in direct contact with it every day, and for long hours.
I also love a nice looking bedspread, but I have shared with you previously that my current one is from Shein. It matches the look I was trying to recreate, and it looks far more expensive than it was, although it was more on par with the prices you would find at Zara home. Read more about how I shop on Shein for high quality here.
8. A Comfortable Mattress and Sofa
If you care about your health, make sure to splurge on your mattress. As someone who suffers with chronic neck and body pain, I can’t value my mattress enough, because I know that when I get a good night’s sleep I am going to have a better day, be happier and more productive. And you can’t do that with a bad mattress.
I have been fortunate to stay at many Airbnbs throughout the years, and only twice or three times, has the mattress been very bad, usually very hard. I know some people like that, but a medium firmness is more popular, so it would be a safer option for a rental.
If you research the best mattress brands in Italy, Dorelan comes third, and that’s what I went with. At that time, I didn’t know whether it was the best or the third best, but a new store had opened close to me and it looked gorgeous. We liked the service and the prices, and so we went to trial the different options. We chose a softer memory foam mix mattress, and we are both fairly happy. I am not sure if we would choose the same one at this stage. I think my husband would prefer a slightly harder one.
We didn’t just buy the mattress from there, we also bought the bed spring system and the entire bed frame. We still love our brown faux leather classic bed, although I would love a lighter color in our next home.
While not as important as your mattress, Italians love their sofas, which explains why many of the best sofa brands are Italian.
In case you are wondering, my sofa is from the Italian brand Natuzzi. I have always loved that brand. I still love the sofa design, but like with my bed, if I would go back I would pick beige over brown. I have realized that I love lighter interiors over darker ones, and light furniture can help lighten the space so much.
9. A Bidet
Although not needed for everyone, bidets are a very essential thing for us Italians. We like being and feeling clean, and it helps us also with our paranoiac tendencies of worrying about getting sick.
If you too value that in your life, consider adding one in your next bathroom design or renovations. I currently don’t have it in my bathrooms because there was no space for it, but I might add one in my next one. I know I would use it, but my Scottish husband thinks it’s hilarious. I wonder what your opinion on bidets is?
10. Neutral Color Palettes & Curated Artwork
While every Italian home and Italian’s interior style is different from another’s, most Italians prefer lighter more neutral interiors, especially when compared with British interiors, who love playing with bolder and darker colors.
Design-Italia.it shared that 25% of Italians prefer their homes to be mostly white, especially when it comes to wall paint choices. That’s because it looks clean, brightens the space, and also gives a sense of peace. I fully agree with that, and that’s why my wall opposite my bed is completely white, including the two doors on the sides. When I wake up in the morning, I find it super peaceful to look at all the white in front me, plus the white light coming in from the white blinds. It’s like I am in the clouds :).
That research also revealed that in the North, yellow tones are preferred options for kitchens because they help recall the sun, something that they don’t see as much as in the South. I found that very funny, but also understanding. I would never put yellow on my walls. Yet, my second rental home had yellow toned beige walls throughout it, and I hated it.
Shades of green are loved in the centre of Italy, and more blue tones in Southern Italy.
We could go on and on talking about Italian home color palettes, and there might be a separate space for that, but for now, I’d say that neutral colors are probably your safest choice to recreate an Italian vibe in your home.
Perhaps, you could go with white or a tone of white/cream/dove you like, and then add accent colors with fabrics and artwork.
Speaking of art, that’s a very important part of Italian homes. Beautiful paintings, sculptures, but also modern streetstyle photographs in more modern homes, are a great way to finish a home. And this is a very easy way to inject your own home with an Italian feeling.
If you chose the Tuscan theme for your fabrics, you could keep it up with your paintings, and source paintings with Tuscan landscape, carrara marble decorative objects, Italian statues replicas, etc.
Read The Full Dolce Vita Series
That’s all for this article. I hope it has inspired you and given you practical ideas on how to tweak things a little and make your own home feel more Italian, if that’s something you are after.
And if you are in the process of buying, building, or renovating a home, I trust that has planted a few seeds in your mind. Stay tuned for the interior posts coming next year.
Without planning it, my first dolce vita post has grown into a series — thanks to all the love you’ve shown it.
If you’d like to read the other posts, I am listing them in order:
Dolce Vita Lifestyle
Dolce Vita Dresses
Dolce Vita Home Part 1
If you have a special request, I’d love to hear it. Come say hello in my newsletter and let’s chat about it. Remember that you can sign up via the signup box in this post. You’ll find multiple ones as you scroll up and down this page. See you there.
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A presto,
Alessia
