If your taste in interior design happens to be art-deco hotel style, with perhaps the odd touch of Edwardian, you might in the past have struggled to find the right furniture. Well, now you are in luck. The Savoy, which rather prides itself on this particular look, is having a clear-out sale.

The hotel’s problem was that some of its rooms could not decide whether they were Edwardian or deco. Now their minds have been made up for them, thanks to a £100m refit that will close the place – for the first time in its 118-year history – for 16 months from December 15. That means 3,000 items of furniture will become surplus to requirements.

Fancy laying down the hotel’s parquet dancefloor in your flat? It comes in 100 sections, all just under a metre square, and yours for an estimated £400-£600. Or how about using a rosewood reception counter as an unusual breakfast bar? That’ll be £300-£500.

There are heavy Edwardian-style curtains, there are chairs, there are sofas. There is a screen the size of a small country house that shows the Beaufort hunt in full cry. There are armchairs, occasional tables, mirrors, chandeliers, writing desks, standard lamps. There is a collection of those huge silver trays on which butlers balance whatever it is that butlers balance. There are even 200 umbrella stands. What’s more, few items have a reserve price: everything must go.

“I think this will appeal very much to past guests,” says Charlie Thomas, one of 10 Bonhams auctioneers who will be selling the lots. “People who stayed here, people who honeymooned here, people who are looking for souvenirs.”

There is also plenty to offer homeowners who are looking for some cheap but unusual furniture. Such as Richard Harris’s sofa. The actor, who played Professor Dumbledore in the first two Harry Potter films before his death in 2002, spent so long at the Savoy that his suite, No 758, is now named after him. There is every chance, I suppose, that he kept his spare underwear in the George III mahogany chest that is expected to fetch between £3,000 and £5,000.

And he might or might not have rested on the two-seater sofa that is a more modest £300-£500.

It’s the sort of sofa you might find in any country home or largish townhouse – one of those elegant Edwardian-style numbers with short little legs and cushions that seem to have been designed with very large bottoms in mind. “I’ve been looking for a new sofa recently, and ones like this cost about £1,200,” Thomas says. “We expect this one to fetch £300-£500. Of course, you have to take into account the cost of upholstery if you want to reupholster, but that’s still pretty good.”

The Savoy has an impressive guest register. Winston Churchill stayed here, using the aluminium waste paper baskets as ashtrays (these are not for sale), while other guests have included Marilyn Monroe, Elton John, Claude Monet, Charlie Chaplin, Elizabeth Taylor and Marlene Dietrich – who is said to have made love five times in the Lancaster ballroom (presumably during the slow, slow, quick, quick, slow).

Unfortunately, none of the items in the auction can be linked directly to these famous visitors. “I think I’ve found a chair that Marilyn Monroe sat on,” Thomas says. “Unfortunately, it’s not in the sale.”

It’s also true that, to carry off some of the items, your home should be on the large side. Lot 67, for example, is a five-panel marquetry screen designed by Viscount Linley. Valued at £3,000-£5,000, it’s more than 6ft tall and has instructions to the waiting staff taped to its back. Yet wander around the hotel and you’ll find smaller, little-regarded objects that would look quite at home in the average flat.

Lot 167, for example, is a birch satinwood buffet table in the shape of an elegant D, lying on its back on a plinth base. You could use it as a buffet table if you wish, but it would also make a decorative bookcase or an upmarket magazine rack. It would look particularly at home with lot 145, a pair of circular mirrors in birch art-deco frames that are nearly 4ft in diameter.

To get the Beaufort hunt galloping across your sitting room will require £10,000-£15,000, not to mention a very large sitting room. But lot 2,888, two pink-edged jugs marked “The Savoy”, are expected to fetch no more than £15. Then there’s lot 2,894 – 250 pink-edged muffin dishes for £100-£150. In all the best homes, you can never have enough pink-edged muffin dishes.

The Savoy sale takes place at the Savoy, Strand, WC2, on December 18, 19 and 20; viewings on December 16 and 17. To enter the viewings and the sale, you must buy a catalogue (£33), which admits two people. To bid, you need to register; 020 7468 8200, www.bonhams.com . All the lots can be viewed online Goingonce...

Lot 16:Large gilt metal and glass two-tier chandelier: £1,500-£2,000

Lot 17:Nine George II-style mahogany-framed dining chairs with red upholstery: £300-£500

Lot 105:A bentwood hat and stick stand: £30-£50

Lot 976:A French painted and parcel-gilt double bed in Louis XVI style, with green and cream tented canopy: £1,000-£1,500

Lot 1,670:A pair of pink and cream patterned curtains: £100-£150

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