His creative slant has led to a new career
09:53, 14 Nov 2025Updated 17:49, 15 Nov 2025
Chris Beaumont pictured with the table he created for his wife (Image: Joseph Raynor/ Reach PLC)
With his flamboyant look, flowing locks and facial hair Chris Beaumont bears a passing resemblance to the TV interior designer Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen — and that’s not all he has in common.
Like the Changing Rooms star, Chris and his wife Veronica have an eye for colour, as their vibrant home in Basford proves. Jungle print wallpaper in the hallway, a pink and mint green kitchen, mermaid-themed bathroom, neon signs and rainbow rugs…. there’s simply not an inch of magnolia to be found.
The four-bedroomed detached house has been transformed into one of Nottinghamshire’s most colourful properties. They moved into the new-build in 2019 but didn’t touch it at first as they both had busy jobs and spent the evenings watching TV.
But when lockdown hit and boredom set in, a colourful revolution began. Chris, 42, said: “Everything was a shade of beige. We just thought we’ll paint the cupboard doors of the kitchen a mint colour and put some gold handles on. It would just brighten up the place where we’re spending all our time. When you’re in there 24/7 it gave us that bit more impetus to do something.
“I think with the way of both of our personalities, it just got a little bit out of hand. So next we were painting the fridge pink and obviously that’s an unusual thing to do as it’s metal. It’s quite hard to paint and it required a bit of specialised knowledge so we had to do a bit of research first.”
One of the colourful rooms in the Beaumont home
It led to the creation of their Instagram account, the Electric Penguin, featuring photographs of the striking decor that’s spread throughout the house, including a pink bar. The number of followers rocketed – currently there are 107,000.
The couple’s love of colour has gone one step further, leading to a new career for Chris as a furniture designer. Until the pandemic, he was working in admin at a University of Nottingham doctoral training centre for engineering students.
At a loose end during lockdown, he decided to surprise his wife by transforming a plain white table into an eye-catching royal blue and gold showstopper, patterned with flowers, flamingos and leopards.
“It had been so white and boring. I think it was the first week she was back in the office so I thought I’d do something nice for her and make it a bit more interesting.
“She loved it. She posted loads of photos on social media and, by that point, we’d built up a pretty decent following for the house renovation.
“We were just very, very lucky that we had such a big audience on the house account already. Everybody was indoors and had nothing else to do but look at their phones. And it was just the right time to get a lot of eyes on this.”
A couple of followers wanted to know if they could order a table. Chris began with a batch of five, then another five and it just snowballed.
With his admin job in jeopardy, he decided to quit to set up Beaumont Design and now produces three core pieces: bedside tables, coffee tables and chests of drawers.
Starting with a blank canvas, the furniture is painted, varnished and then covered in vinyl printed with designs created in Photoshop. Chris said: “I’m very meticulous in the way I do it. There’s a lot of skill and precision, trimming it off to the point where you’re talking fractions of a millimetre between it being perfectly smooth and it catching and coming off.”
His website shows designs with tigers, leopard print, blue marble, hot pink, flowers, flamingos and peacocks, with prices ranging from £149 to £249, but customers can choose their own bespoke design as well.
A hot pink and glitter Christmas side table
“I’ve got a few special Christmas designs that sell surprisingly well such as baubles around the outside and a glitter top. It’s very extra and ‘out there’. I admire the kind of people who commit to a Christmas table. I don’t know if it goes away for 11 months of the year or whether it’s Christmas all year round.”
Chris has gone from making the tables in his garage at home to renting a workshop across the border near Swarkstone in Derbyshire, where he works independently.
More than 1,500 pieces have been shipped all over the world, with 50 perc ent ending up in America until Donald Trump’s tariff changes, which have made it more hit-and-miss but he hopes sales will grow again.
The furniture is gracing homes across Canada, Japan and Australia. “Europe is slightly more difficult with paperwork these days, but we get a lot. Germany especially is quite a big market for whatever reason,” he said.
While he never imagined it would evolve into a business, Chris has always had a creative slant. Before his university job he worked as a photographer for ten years.
To see his designs go to beaumontdesign.co.uk. Follow @theelectricpenguin and @beaumont.design on Instagram.