New Orleans Style
Renowned for its easy charm and exotic, nostalgic atmosphere, New Orleans is home to a piquant mix of cultures -- French, Spanish, African, and Deep Southern. Walking down the main boulevards in New Orleans, offer unique and sometimes unexpected wares, appealing to even the least curious passer-by.
This historic city blends the antique with the funky and the old with the odd. The architectural heritage here is the richest in America. All over the city, European elegance is jazzed up with Caribbean and African vibrancy and a dash of Carnival.
Picture these inviting scenes. Above a cobbled street in the Vieux Carre, potted ferns cast shade over a wrought-iron balcony. Just uptown, a ceiling fan stirs the lazy air in the upper gallery of a Garden District mansion. A simple Acadian rocking chair waits on the ginger breaded porch of a Victorian cottage. Live oaks shelter wide boulevards lined with grand Greek Revival and Italianate mansions. Lush banana trees shade Creole cottages painted in tropical shades of mango and lime. Gardenia and night-blooming jasmine scent the air.
Painted accents in porch ceilings create personality and charm.
New Orleans style combines classic structures with bold color and accents inspired by the city's festive, eccentric traditions. Crown moldings, floor-to-ceiling sash windows, and pocket doors mix it up with oyster-bar octagonal tile, wooden ceiling fans, Mardi Gras masks and beads. A touch of bordello style in the form of velvet swags or gas lights lends a true Vieux-Carre feeling to a room. Tropical plants such as potted banana trees, an palms, orchids and fichus evoke the intimate jungle of the French Quarter courtyard. Laissez les bon temps rouler!
Ornamental Plaster
Architectural plaster features, interior details and ornamentation!
Ceiling medallions, cornices and moldings. Capitals, crowns and cartouches. Ournauthentic Period and Historic architectural ornamentation are all crafted in genuine plaster. For commercial and residential environments. Repairs and restoration.
Hand Painted Floor Cloth
Freshen any room with this creative checker board painted floor cloth.
The magic of a painted floor cloth can transform a common space into a unique and beautiful expression of you and your family’s personality. Use these versatile cloths for entrance floors, children's rooms, porches, or just about anywhere. Due to the hand painted nature of each floor cloth there is a great opportunity to customize an interior detail to the home, adding quirky elements and personal touches that help create these singularly unique painted floor cloths.
New Orleans Inspirations
Walls:
Bold color with ornate or substantial crown molding and picture hangers are a mainstay. The French influence is present all around, exemplified by pocket doors, and the multiple paned French door. Mantels frame fire places and create a focal point for design of the New Orleans room, as well as being the Traditional gathering place for families to pass down tales and traditions, the lore of generation to generation.
Objects:
Hand painted signage, with a creole folk art flare, abound on walls, shops and local haunts. Brass or copper light fixtures complement wrought iron balconies and entrances. Mardi Gras masks, beads, hot sauce bottles add color and character to local interiors. And, or course, tropical foliage reminds us of just where we are.
Ceilings:
Tall ceilings mark this style, often 12-14' high. Many are capped with stamped tin with antique wood ceiling fan to cool the whole room down.
Floors:
You'll commonly find "barge board" or antique heart of pine floors. Wide planked and firm under the feet.
Windows:
Floor to ceiling windows, often beveled glass provide an airiness that lights the New Orleans room. Louvered or solid wood exterior shutters, help protect from the occasional downpour. While rich velvet or brocade curtains imply a coziness and comfort.
Fabrics:
Silks, velvets and hand woven brocades fill the home on furnishings, curtains and bedding. Lacework and linens add a bit more texture to the environment and rich damask patterns, tone on tone, are used effectively in all rooms.
Furniture:
You might find a Cypress plank table, perfect for layering with newspaper and piling up the crab legs. Or the rich colonial feel of mahogany, used to create side boards to house quirky collections. And the easy going, casualness of wicker line porches, as if in anticipation for the afternoon nap of it's owner.
Accessories:
Brass or copper light fixtures complement wrought iron balconies and entrances. Mardi Gras masks, beads, hot sauce bottles add color and character to local interiors. And, or course, tropical foliage reminds us of just where we are.
Early American Style
Colonial Amercians drew inspriation from their European heritage. Curent design styles would filter across the ocean and become reinventedin early America. Proportion and scale took reign over ornementation, A neutral color palette of grey blue, greens and rose pinks is readily apparent.
Stucco Rustico - Aged Plaster
Stucco Rustico is a Traditional interior and exterior textured plaster that epitomizes the rustic old world charm commonly associated with Tuscan environments. I love this treatment for its ease of application and the natural, organic glazed appearance that results when using mineral based plasters and glazes. Whether a rough application or a smooth finish, this treatment holds true to the test of time and, in fact, feels as if time itself stopped to wash the walls personally.
The Rustic Color Palette
The Rustic Style color palette falls within a distinct range of color tones and is essential in creating a successful Rustic interior. By using the appropriate color tones you can create a variety of design styles ranging from Period and Historic, regional or thematic. Color helps define our experiences within an interior and exterior environment. It affects us on a physical, emotional, and spiritual level and can be calming and passive, expressive and vital.
Painted Floral Details
Floral patterns used as accents in fabrics and furniture are common place details in the English Country home. These graceful and organic patterns complement the cozy interior of this style and work particularly well with lace window treatments, an heirloom tea service set and the natural and rustic charm of wooden ceiling beams and slightly irregularly textured walls.