Gold Wall Clocks

Polished gold and antique brass

The two finishes here behave quite differently and are often confused in photographs. A polished or bright gold reflects hard, reads as modern and shows fingerprints if it is ever handled. An antique or aged brass has been darkened deliberately, so it reads as older even on a new piece and hides marks almost completely. Against a pale wall the bright finish stands out and the antique recedes, which is the decision to make before the design.

Metal frames and glass faces

Most of these are built around a metal frame, because metal holds a wide circle true where timber needs far more depth to do the same job. A glass front protects the face and is what you want in a kitchen, where the air carries grease that an open face collects. An open face is easier to read at an angle and gathers dust on the hands, which is a short job once a year rather than a real drawback.

Where a gold clock works

A living room is the usual home and a hallway is the one people underestimate, because a hall is mostly doors and a clock gives the eye something else. A kitchen is the hardest placement, since it is the room where a clock is genuinely used and also the one that will coat it, so a glass face earns its place there. Gold does particularly well in a room with low light, because it returns what little there is.

How much gold a room can take

One gold piece reads as deliberate. The clock is usually the best thing to make that piece, because it is on a wall rather than on the floor and so competes with nothing. If there is already brass in the room, repeating it in the clock ties the scheme together; if there is not, the clock alone is enough and a second gold object will start to look like a theme.

Scale decides this more than colour does. A small gold clock on a large wall reads as an accessory and needs pictures around it; a wide one carries the wall by itself and should be given the space to do it. If the wall already has art on it, the clock is competing, and the honest answer is usually to move one of them rather than to hang both and hope.

The mechanism, and the ticking

Almost all of these are quartz movements running on a single battery, which is why a decorative clock costs what it does rather than what a mechanical one would. Worth asking is whether the movement ticks audibly or sweeps, because a tick nobody notices in a kitchen is very noticeable in a quiet room at night. Battery life is usually a year or more.

Hanging it, and keeping the finish

Match the fixing to the weight on the product page: plasterboard wants a proper hollow-wall anchor rather than a picture hook, masonry wants a plug. For cleaning, a dry or barely damp cloth and nothing abrasive, because a plated gold finish is thin by design and a scouring pad or a cream cleaner will take it straight off. Keep it off a wall that gets strong afternoon sun, which fades a printed face over a few years.