Desenio: An Honest Review


Hey Owlets,


I am so excited to bring you this review today. If you’ve been anywhere on the homewares/fashion blogger internet circle then you’ve probably heard of Desenio. It feels as if they just popped up out of nowhere one day and every single blogger I followed had Desenio artwork in their homes. I can’t lie, I’m quite easily influenced if a blogger I really like is talking about something, and having seen so many people mention Desenio I desperately wanted some of their prints. At the time as a 15 year old girl with only pocket money in my bank it wasn’t a priority purchase but I still loved going through the website just because I enjoyed looking at pretty pieces. Fast forward almost a decade and, having just moved into my first home, I was so excited to finally be able to shop on Desenio and fill my walls with the beautiful artwork that I’d been staring at for years!

Just to preface my chat about the pieces we chose I wanted to chat about mine and Jack’s style. I love things that make me smile, remind me of happy memories or that are just generally pretty. Jack isn’t nearly as bothered as me, but he just likes things that will make him smile or laugh when he looks at it. We both love bright colours, hence me managing to convince him that a bright yellow sofa for our home was a great idea. Although our two styles sounded like they could clash it actually worked out very well. We sat down and chose the prints together, ending up with a mixture of travel, modern and cartoony prints - I know that sounds like it wouldn’t go but it does. Our home is just a mass of bright white walls, and despite the aforementioned yellow sofa it still feels very plain. We had a few friends and some family visit for a tour of our home between lockdowns and they all remarked on how empty it felt, so that absolutely enabled me to choose some fun prints.



Desenio’s website somehow feels like you’re walking through an upmarket art gallery, except it’s not snobby, you can actually afford the art and no one is judging you for wearing pyjamas. The site is very easy to use and caters just as much to the experienced buyer as the “I have no idea what I’m doing, I just want my house to look nice” crowd - i.e. me. You can shop by theme, colour palette, room or see what everyone else is buying in the best sellers list. You can also just use the search if you want something specific and they have prints of just about everything you could think of (except for cruise ships, they get minus points for that). The gallery wall tool is also absolutely amazing. You can choose from a few different living room layout images, then choose your wall layout and prints to go in it from there, or you can shop their pre-selected gallery walls so all you have to do is follow their design when the images arrive. 


The prints are incredibly affordable, starting at just £8 for a smaller size. We went for the 30cmx40cm for areas that we wanted a few prints, and 50cmx70cm for more feature artwork. Being totally honest, we found the frames to be quite pricey and with not owning a single piece of artwork already we opted to spend our money on prints to decorate the whole flat rather than spending it on frames. We bought the large frames from Desenio as we weren’t sure how easy they would be to source, then bought the smaller frames elsewhere as they were a lot easier to find. In all honesty, if you can afford the extra I would look at buying the frames on Desenio rather than what we did. The first frames we ordered didn’t fit the prints (we ordered the right dimensions, they were just poor quality), then the second set left small shards of glass on our lounge floor where they chipped around the edges. Desenio’s frames were great quality and fit the prints perfectly - it really is a case of “you get what you pay for” so I would really recommend investing the extra in buying frames that are going to last.



We spent £200 for 9 30cmx40cm prints, 3 50cmx70cm prints and some frames. However, we did happen to be shopping when there was a 3 for 2 deal on prints, but you can usually find some kind of discount code online. They arrived in less than a week despite saying that delivery would take 7-10 days which was great. We were actually just about to go out for a walk and I was so excited that we abandoned our plans and opened the box straight away. You know I’m always honest with you, and I was a little disappointed when we opened the box. Several of the prints had gotten damaged in transit. The large bunny print has a crease in possibly the most conspicuous place, and the others all had damage on the corners. Knowing that we were going to frame them I thought they would be OK so I didn’t bother contacting customer services, but I’ve heard good things about them so if you have any issues then I would imagine they’d be very pleased to help. Once we put the prints in frames you didn’t really notice any of the damage. Even the damage on the bunny print is a lot less noticeable once framed. The prints themselves were excellent quality, both in terms of their printing and the paper that was used - it’s literally just the damage in transit that let them down a little.


Having discussed what I thought of the most talked about art company on the internet, I wanted to show you what we chose - half because I’m excited, half because it might give you some inspiration.


When we first viewed our home-to-be, the lounge was a little daunting because it was so big. It ended up working out really well as we were able to split it into zones - I have my desk in one corner, the dining table in the other and our sofas are in an L shape around a coffee table to separate a zone for relaxing. With that in mind we wanted the artwork to follow the same kind of structure, but to be cohesive over all. I’m aware that I take a lot of photos in the lounge and so we wanted to keep the prints quite modern (read: Instagrammable), so the main theme is travel. Above my desk I chose these two maps of Lisbon and Rotterdam - they’re my favourite port cities I’ve ever been to on a cruise and the map actually shows the cruise terminal (you know I’d shoehorn in cruising somehow, didn’t you?). This makes me so happy because it’s what I see every day when I’m working and it inspires me to think of new ideas by remembering my past trips to these cities.



Above the dining table we have a print of Paris - no reason behind this one if I’m honest, it’s just a city that I’ve always wanted to visit and see more of and the print was pretty. In the “relaxing” part of the lounge, we chose some brightly coloured travel posters. I chose places that I’d been to, and the plan is that eventually I’m going to print one of my own images from each place to accompany the posters and make a more full gallery wall - it just hasn’t quite happened yet, and I don’t want to rush into it and choose the wrong pictures.


The rest of the artwork in our home is less Instagram-focused and more just what makes us laugh. We’ve always said that we want our home to look nice, but also be more of a reflection of us and it felt like the second part was lacking a little. Jack said he wants our friends to come over, notice something and laugh, thinking “it’s definitely their home” and I absolutely agree with him. We chose these two giraffe prints to brighten up our entrance for the exact reason that we found them funny. We also chose the “Pineap-owl” for our kitchen because it made us smile; our kitchen is very blue all down one side and totally plain on the other side so we wanted something colourful to balance it out.



Next up, we chose this black and white bunny for the bedroom. It made me smile because the rabbit I had when I was young was the same breed and would always lie down in the same way. We also chose it because we wanted something quite calm for the bedroom. Finally, we chose this print of giraffes in a plane, held up by balloons. It reminded me of Disney’s “UP” film and I love Disney, but also it just made us laugh and fit in with the bright colours in our home. We’ve accidentally fallen into a lot of giraffe-themed homeware despite my obsession with owls, so this print fit perfectly. Right now it doesn’t have a home, but we’re planning to get a sideboard for our hallway and then it will go above that to make a pretty entranceway/place to put my phone and keys so I stop wasting time looking for them.


I actually wrote an article about how to choose artwork, based off of my experience choosing pieces for our home, so if you need a little more help in choosing then have a read of that too. I can’t lie, I absolutely love shopping for homewares and giving our flat more of our personality and I was so excited to be able to finally shop on Desenio after all these years! Despite me getting unlucky with my prints being damaged, I would still absolutely recommend them for their unique artwork, helpful tools and amazing value. After 10 years of staring at their site with nowhere to put their products, they definitely didn’t disappoint.



Love and Feathers,
The Owlet 💜 
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