Spanish decor features elements from other decorating styles.
Spanish-style decor has its roots in the villas and farmhouses of the Mediterranean. As Spain extended its empire into the New World, it brought its decor style with it. But Spanish design was also impacted by the cultures of the people it conquered, and today it's a mix of Aztec, Mexican and traditional Spanish colonial with a dash of Southwestern decor thrown in for good measure. Spanish style is not limited to a grand hacienda. You can create it in your casa no matter where you live. Does this Spark an idea?
Instructions
Furniture
1. Select heavy wooden furniture pieces with intricate carvings and hand-drawn or stenciled patterns, made from dark woods like teak, mahogany and ebony.
2. Opt for furniture that is ornately trimmed in brass, copper, tile and wrought iron.
3. Choose oversized upholstered furniture to complement the large wooden pieces it will share the room with. Opt for sofas and chairs covered in leather, heavy linens and tapestry.
Walls
4. Paint your walls in warm earth colors like terra cotta, muted shades of greens, yellows and burnished golds. Use richer hues like the jewel red of wine and the purple of an amethyst on accent walls.
5. Apply textured paint to emulate the uneven surface of plaster and stucco. Most paint manufacturers, like Behr and Sherwin-Williams, make textured paint, and you can purchase it at any home improvement store.
6. Trim the room with bright colors. Pair the intense blue of the sea with a pale yellow wall. Highlight an olive green wall with sunshine yellow trim. Tone it down with cream-colored doors and fireplace surrounds.
7. Install tiles in kitchens as backsplashes, countertops and focal points. Use them on bathroom counters and walls. Choose brightly colored tiles with intricate, almost kaleidoscopic designs or opt for the more rustic look of simple folk art renditions of animals, people or scenes of nature. Pull your color palette for the rest of the room from the decorative tiles.
8. Dress the windows in natural materials. Choose simple linen or muslin curtains. Opt for wooden shutters.
Floors
9. Lay rustic wooden floors. Use wide planks. Distress the floor before finishing it.
10. Select large, thick terra cotta tiles to use throughout the house or limit them to kitchens and patios. Or choose slate or fieldstone to give your home the look of an historic Spanish farmhouse or Mexican hacienda.
11. Warm the floors with colorful woven throw rugs. Choose Oriental-style area rugs. If possible, avoid wall-to-wall carpeting for a more authentic look.
Accessories
12. Hang a tapestry on an intricate wrought iron rod on the wall behind your couch or bed. Install one on the wall above a cream-colored stucco fireplace.
13. Install copper or wrought iron wall sconces for ambient light.
14. Frame oil paintings in intricate frames of heavy, carved wood accented with gold leaf.
15. Select wrought iron wall art and lamp bases. Hang mirrors framed in iron with graceful curved lines.
16. Toss a colorful throw over a chocolate brown leather couch. Highlight a bedroom furnished in dark wood and painted an earthy color with a duvet cover and throw pillows in a bright Mexican print.
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