Within the house, arched doorways are common in between the kitchen and family room and living room. We’ve established that older Spanish colonial style homes may not have as many rooms connected, but spanish colonial revival homes have plenty of interconnected rooms, and even an upstairs floor. One of the key features in Spanish colonial style homes are large arches in the home and in the hallways outside of the home. However, furniture, especially furniture for seating, does not need to be leather plenty of styles use cloth as a replacement, so don’t feel like you’re closed off from other materials! You can even use different kinds of couch covers to match the changing seasons or your personal preference. A rug that matches the ceiling and wall colors would be most appropriate here, since the tiling and the rest of the decor in the room has an orange or brown tint to it. The flooring is tile, and, if you want to reduce the echo in this room, a rug will help dampen the sounds. Off to the side is an ornate high table with opening doors, perhaps used for storage. Leather couches and leather chairs surround a large coffee table in front of a fireplace. Wood is best when it’s stained dark, and often is ornate in nature, but can be simple as well!īelow is a photo of an older spanish style home.
When picking furniture for this type of design, it doesn’t necessarily need to look old school for it to fit. It also matches the color of the tiling, too, so it doesn’t stand out as much. They’ve used a rug to cover some space as well, but it’s a thinner rug than, say, the shag rugs of farmhouse design. Spanish colonial homes will have a family room or living room, sometimes both if the house is big enough.Īs a general rule of thumb, most homes will have either large tiling on the floor or finished hardwood floors, generally stained dark forest brown and darker.īelow is an example of a home with tiled flooring. Arches often line the courtyard too, and square doors are used for entry into the bedrooms. They can be square doorways, but you don’t capture the same feeling as with arched doorways. You may have a small room off to one side or the other, but more commonly, you’ll walk into the family room or living room.Ī big feature of these homes are arched doorways – they’re very characteristic and reminiscent of the early 1600s and 1700s. You’ll likely step into a grand entrance hall, as seen in the above pin. The entryway into a Spanish colonial style home is pretty similar to most homes, but you’ll most likely be greeted with a small view of the courtyard upon entering. Additional rooms were often built onto the previous one, so the hallways were often on the outside and lined the courtyard. They were generally L-shaped, and sometimes a “box” shape surrounding a courtyard. Most of these homes featured a large, open patio or a courtyard.
The windows commonly had wooden shutters. These homes generally had limited openings for doors and windows. In spanish colonial design, walls were built thick, usually with white stucco on an adobe brick or stone foundation to help cool the house in these hotter climates. Now, because this design was brought to such a large region, there are slight differences in spanish homes among some certain regions, from California to Florida and even California to Texas. Where the British used wood for most of their design, the Spaniards used stucco, clay, and plaster. The tools and materials were vastly different than the British colonizers on the east coast. The Spanish explorers settled in these places with similar climates to their native Spain, and the houses they built were quite similar in design. This influence is still seen in many parts of the country, particularly warmer, desert areas like Texas, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico. However, the Spaniards arrived in the New World around the same time, colonizing parts of Florida and large parts of California and the Southwest.
When you hear colonial design, you probably think of British colonial design which arose on the eastern coast of the United States – not spanish colonial design.