Modern Home Design with Period Interior Decor

The great thing about being an interior designer with a shop full of beautiful fabrics and furniture, and a range of paints of one’s own choosing, is the speed at which a home can be transformed. Designers famously try out furniture, colours, pictures, chandeliers and fabrics at home; sometimes they sold on, sometimes they stay for years, but being able to experiment without fear of disapproval is one of the joys of the business.

classic luxury dining room design

luxury warm color interior design

luxury bedsofa furniture design

luxury living room interior design ideas

The German owner of this 1920s apartment uses it as an extensions of his shop and is greatly taken with the atmosphere of the building, where all his neighbors are owner-occupiers. Creating the perfect home is as much about colour and design as it is about environment and atmosphere. There are many European influences at work here, from France, Scandinavia and England. The walls are painted in rich colours but are not cluttered with pictures. Scale is important and large mirrors are a favorite device to reflect light and add depth to the rooms. Antique fabrics are considered essential to tone down newly decorated rooms and imbue them with a sense of past life and history.

Modern of Mexico Home with Artificial Bamboo Forest Inside

House 7N2 was recently remodeled by popular Mexican architects, Anonimous-LED. The main feature of this two-store home is an open hall with artificial bamboo forest which rests in the water. Great lighting system make this place look unforgettable in evenings. The hall also helps to make better connection between indoor and outdoor areas by being an extension of the garden. A living room, a dining room, a kitchen and a breakfast nook are all located on the first floor and also open to the surroundings. The second floor includes all private rooms and overlooks the courtyard. Natural floors, bamboo decor elements and marble make the interior quite original and stylish. All that is also combined with the modern and elegant furniture to create a very original living place.

Home Design Ideas - Split the Garage!

At Larson Brenner Architects I am currently working a client on a new home design to be constructed in Rochester, MN.  Here we have run into a very common dilemma.  What to do with 3 1/2 cars worth of garage?   

If you put all of that garage to the side of the house you get one very wide plan.  If you put all of that garage forward of the house you get one very deep plan.  Many lots cannot accommodate either one of those plan arrangements.  So what I have proposed to do here is to split the garages into two separate structures.  The main two car garage is directly connected to the house via the mudroom zone.  The additional 1 1/2 car garage is placed on the opposite side of the lot; resulting in a nifty little entry court.  See sketches below.

Here you can see a birds eye view of the layout.  Notice the roof between the garage and house is low.  This helps to reduce the mass of the house.  Pulling the garages a bit forward of the front porch creates a nifty little courtyard.

view from street

view approaching courtyard

nice little composition

So when you develop your next house plan - please think about the impact of that garage and look for creative solutions.

Home Design Ideas - Funky Fireplace

You can learn much from studying rooms that you love. Below I have attached a living room picture from a home I designed a few years ago. This turned out to be a very calm and soothing space. I wish I were sitting there now!

A few key points:

• Windows were placed on both of the outside walls of the space. I always try to have natural lighting feeding into a space from more than one direction.
• Fireplace wall design was asymmetrical. Here form followed function. We needed a hideaway for the flat screen on one side, but not both. That left space for a cozy bench on the other side of the fireplace.
• A funky half oval shaped fireplace was used. This adds a very unique detail to an element that is normally very predictable (the rectangular fireplace box).
• Yellow walls with cream trim; natural wood floors and leather - the materials and colors are comforting.
• Dark ebony stained trim is used sparingly to cap off the fireplace and media cabinet and at the stair railing. This adds richness and sophistication to the space.
• Recessed lighting above highlights the details of the composition.

The moral of this story is - if you are looking to remodel a space in your home; find pictures of similar spaces that you love. Then study them to discover what it is about that space that makes it work so well.