Interior Decor - Arts and Crafts

The interior of Arts and Crafts houses have a lot of high quality wood features, such as 10" wood trim, wainscotting, french doors and quarter-sawn oak floors. Wood is also featured heavily around the fireplace and built in shelving or inglenooks.

The attractiveness of the wood provides much of the esthetic and aleviates the need to add a lot of knick nacks, prints or other decorating pieces. Frank Lloyd Wright himself did not believe that hanging pictures should be necessary ar all if the houses features are designed correctly.

When you do add a piece to an Art and Crafts room, try to ensure that it could be considered both useful and beautiful and choose high quality hand-crafted items.

Lighting is an important part of the Arts and Crafts style. Electrical lighting was appearing in homes for the first time when the Arts and Crafts style came to prominence. Arts and crafts light fixtures tend to emulate the look of gas lanterns and favour the look of mica or coloured glass shades. Like everything else in the Arts and Crafts style, choices should favour fixtures that appear hand crafted.

For more information on the history and characteristics of Arts and Crafts houses see The Arts & Crafts Style, and Bungalow Mania.

When decorating an Arts and Crafts house, do ...

Maintain the wood features
Consider stripping wood if it has been painted
Choose colours that are based on a natural pallette
Restore the hardwood floor
Spend money on good quality light fixtures
Choose furniture made of natural materials such as wood and natural leathers
Choose furniture with clean lines and not a lot of unnecessary ornamentation
Keep the rooms uncluttered -- have less items of higher quality as opposed to more items of lower quality
Choose art and art pieces that empasize forms based on nature
Use creative lighting techniques to counteract dark colours (picture lights, sconces, hidden light sources)

... do not ...

Paint over high quality wood features
Paint a brick fireplace (consider using attractive tile to update)
Choose ornate Victorian lighting fixtures
Choose ornate furniture pieces
Over do it -- the style is considered simple and honest

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Interior Decor - Arts and Crafts

When decorating an Arts and Crafts house, do ...

... do not ...

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