Your heritage and personal decorating style
Ethnic traditions, customs and attitudes transmit our family values. Paying tribute to family heritage and tradition also gives our children a strong sense of family ties. Our roots make us what we are, and showing respect for ancient traditions gives the interior of your home a special individuality.
Vernacular heritage
Regional architecture, called the vernacular, designs structures to harmonize and merge with the environment. Designed to reflect the past, using historical influences, vernacular houses complement rather than dominate their surroundings. These houses recreate the traditional neighborhoods of the past with a strong sense of place.
Many vernacular structures provide friendly zones and encourage a relaxed lifestyle. For example, adobe and stucco block houses in Santa Fe often have center courtyards. The cozy porches commonly found in Florida cookie houses invite neighboring cats. Key West’s wood-frame “conch houses” and North Carolina “low country” houses feature spacious decks and large windows to take advantage of the cooling breezes from the area.
Vernacular homes provide a sheltering transitional space from the outside to the inside, but homes without those transitional spaces can benefit greatly when structural or landscaping details are added to harmonize the home’s private interior space with the outside world. If your home doesn’t have a covered entrance, consider adding a wooden or iron frame or canopy to create a sense of protection and shelter.
Ethnic Influence on American Architecture and Furniture
Since Americans have always built homes that mimic their home countries, it is not surprising that Italian and Mediterranean villas, large English country houses, and simple French farms can be found all over the United States. Since our nation’s earliest days, Americans have taken design details from around the world and copied, adapted, and redesigned their ethnic patterns and furniture.
Patterns native to Africa, such as animal prints and intricate geometries, have been duplicated in many ways. Mexican antiques, Danish and Swedish furniture and oriental-influenced accessories have been mixed in our homes. From New England’s Cape Cods to the adobes of Santa Fe, our diverse heritage has influenced American architecture and interior design, while log cabins, rustic western interiors, and American folk art have suggested distinct American origins. .
Style and emotional atmosphere
Style is the end result of decorating the combination of detail features that are reminiscent of a particular era, art movement, or region, such as the Victorian era, the Art Nouveau period, or the prairie style of the Midwest. Mood or emotional setting is your personal interpretation of style to evoke feelings, whether they are clean, elegantly formal, comfortably casual, or romantically eclectic.
Architectural styles: structure and furniture
It is better to leave all the rooms of a period or style for museums or exhibitions. Eclectic rooms combine furniture from different eras, such as a contemporary sofa, a silver maple Chippendale side table, and a gold Louis XVI mirror. The beautiful and the strange, the exquisite and the ordinary, mixed with frivolity and delight, create happy homes.
The architectural style can refer to a structure or a type of furniture. Mixing vintage styles with current lifestyles is called New Traditionalism. Combinations of styles with a lighthearted style create elegant and unpretentious rooms. Some great pieces, interspersed with simple furniture, will bring informality to an otherwise heavy home.
The architectural style also influences the interior design. Understand the architectural style of your home and use it as a benchmark for your décor. In my own case, our modern furniture seemed totally out of place in our 1878 home, so we swapped our glass dining table for a traditional wooden one and replaced a modular sofa with a soft antique one.
Some Victorian homes look magnificent when furnished with contemporary furniture, but this is more difficult to achieve than the other way around, which is a contemporary home, furnished with antiques. Large old homes decorated with modern furniture look best with plain, plain wall finishes and no-frills window shades.
The juxtaposition of styles from your heritage with other styles that suit your taste makes rooms and homes interesting. Not every room in your home needs the same style, but some room-to-room combinations ensure harmony. Mixing heritage styles according to those who share your home also creates a harmonious aura.
Your personal style
If you have a strong affinity for a particular architectural style, incorporate it into your total design plan. Encourage respect for family traditions by surrounding yourself with ethnic furniture and family heirlooms. Any style can be tailored to your way of life, be it serenely elegant, traditionally formal, or casually casual, be it dressing up or trimming the décor trims.
(c) Copyright 2004, Jeanette J. Fisher. All rights reserved.