What’s your style? Transitional or Traditional?
DISCOVER YOUR STYLE
Hello! I hope that you are doing well. I am in sunny South Florida at the moment. The weather is absolutely perfect! I promised to offer a series of blog posts that will help you begin to understand your true design style. This will help you avoid mistakes, stage fright, and help you get on with creating amazing interior spaces in your home. If I were a betting man, I would say that for most people, they know of traditional and transitional interior design. For this reason, we will start with these styles. Are you ready? Let’s GO!
Are you the kind of person that doesn’t really like to have to follow strict rules? You always say, “I don’t need to measure this….I am just gonna eye it.” You like the freedom of creating the rules as you go? Well, if this sounds like you, you may just love transitional design.
In essence, transitional design is simply the blending of (2) styles in the same space that creates (1) cohesive design. In residential interiors, this would be modern and traditional elements. There is so much freedom that comes with transitional design. This gives you the ability to place many various elements until you find what works best and feels great for you--not the world design elite. When done correctly, transitional residential spaces can be luxurious, comfortable, polished yet approachable.
This sounds great Timothy, but how do I make it happen in my home? To start, work with simple lines. Avoid things like rolled arms on your sofa and accent chairs. When selecting lighting, casegoods, and accessories shy away from ornate items, think warm yet clean selections. Finally, think modern and fresh when working with accessories and art.
What about color? Well that depends on the mood that you want to create. For a soothing and comforting look consider 4 to 5 tone on tone colors all fairly light. If you want a moody experience, go with 4 to 5 dark rich colors, all in the same range on the color wheel. When it comes to color and transitional design the guideline is consistency. Particularly with color found in paints, stains, metals, fabrics, and wallcoverings be consistent. This doesn’t mean everything should be the same or matchy. In my design practice, I encourage my clients to be more constrained when it comes to color, and more adventurous with the shape and sizes of everything else in the room.
Finally, transitional can go very Bohemian, without proper color planning.
What about selecting furniture? Ok. One of the amazing things about transitional interiors is the unexpected simplicity that is balanced coordinated mixes of all the elements in the room. Keep your lines similar and complementary. Consider the straight arms on all the chairs. Things like parallel matching sofa and sofas paired with (2) swivel chairs are the anchor for an award winning transitional family or living room.
When selecting your fabrics, again think complementary and coordinating. The sky is really the limit when it comes to all the fabrics and textiles you can introduce. If I could offer a major point to great design, I would say nothing should look out of place, and random. Every piece can be unique yet relate to the next. There should be harmony and balance.
Some of my favorite ways to make every project stand out are by incorporating great window treatments and accessories. With accessories, I tend to recommend a mixture of quality high and low end pieces. Think groups of (3) elements for styling your bookcases and table tops. Think crisp and fuss free. If you entertain, consider things that I call, “conversation starters.” Your With window treatments, sold color simple heavily lined drapery panels are the way to go for sure. If you want to add a little formality to the space, consider adding fringe and tapes to your pillows and panels. Have you considered adding a cornice board? This is a great way to file the sometimes awkward spaces between the tops of windows and the ceiling.
As you can see, transitional spaces are one of my favorites to speak on and to create! While there are fewer rules than with many other styles, the keys are consistency and more or a tonal/ monochromatic approach.
Timothy? When you say traditional are you speaking of my grandmother’s furniture? No not quite. If you find yourself shopping with brands like Ralph Lauren, Bottega Venetta, St. John, Chanel, and even J. Crew--you may be drawn towards traditional interiors in your home. If you live on the east coast, I am sure that you have experienced traditional interiors. In fact, if I had to bet, it is quite possible that many of your favorite movies and television shows feature amazing spaces done in, you go it a traditional design style.
When I think of traditional residential interiors, I think of elegance, livability, beautiful fabrics with muted patterns. In many of my projects, when clients opt for traditional spaces, we feature dark ornate finishes, darker stains, rich Jacobean hardwood floors and elaborate details. If you watched Scandal week after week and you just knew that you wanted to move to Washington DC and purchase a home in Chevy Chase, Adams Morgan, or Kalorama--yep you just might be a lover of traditional interior design.
So...Timothy I follow you but I want to know what makes for strong traditional interiors. No problem. To begin, you are likely to find deep ornate, crown molding, baseboards, and trim. If you know that you are a traditionalist, when purchasing or building your new home--be on the lookout for arches, columns, and elaborate mantels and fierce places.
When it comes to furniture, you will want to include more curves, rolled arms in your sofa and chairs, and don’t forget the curved lets. Many of the major pieces of furniture will most likely be heavy highly detailed antiques or reproductions. On the east coast we use a lot of queen and chippendale pieces.
As a professional, when I assist a family with traditional residential interiors, balance and symmetry are very important. Remember in transitional design, I repeated complimentary over and over again? Well, with traditional spaces, you will achieve balance and symmetry by having things that match. Matching sofa, end tables, lamps, nightstands, all help to ground the space they lay the foundation for, you got it--a more traditional living space.
When we speak of soft furnishings and textiles, you use heavy fabrics like velvet, mohair, linen, leather and silk. Your chairs and upholstered pieces will likely have lots of tufting, ruffles, nailheads, and rounding piping.
What about color? While it is totally possible that you will use whites and creams when designing a more traditional space--its highly likely that you will be using dark red, green, navy blue and dark brown. For many people that staple piece will be the much loved brown leather sofa. Have you considered a Chesterfield sofa? To finish things off consider mixing solids with paisley and plaid.
One last thing, window treatments tend to be heavy, rich and elaborate, You will often find plantation shutters paired with heavy silk drapes or ornate rolled roman shades.
Wow, we covered a lot in this post. How are you feeling? If I could offer any advice and simplification, I would say that transitional interiors will have lighter color, less formality, and less “matching” elements. If you love formality and earth tones consider a more traditional design style.
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That's all for today folks.
