Spanish - Mediterranean Interior Design and Home Remodeling - East Boca Raton

For over 20 years I have loved having my own interior design and home remodeling business located in east Fort Lauderdale with discerning clients from Key West up to Ocean Reef Club, west to Southwest Ranches, Weston and Parkland and up to Boca Raton, including Palm Beach - but I must say having a blind client has been my most unique experience -

Please see the before and after pictures featuring all of the interior design and home remodeling elements in this Spanish - Mediterranean home

Spanish - Mediterranean Style Presentation Board -

No matter if my client is blind or not I love to make a presentation board that allows me to play with all of the items in the room. I always start with the color scheme and fabrics, next is the furnishings and lighting, afterward, I design any architectural components and then I confirm that all of the elements are in balance and scale.

Spanish - Mediterranean Foyer with influences of

Tropical Britsh Colonial - Bahamas and Caribbean Style -

As with any luxury Spanish - Mediterranean interior design decor we had to include these beautiful front doors in our home remodeling services. These double front doors are metal with a rich grained faux wood, chipped privacy glass, and wrought iron scrollwork with 38" tall solid brass door handles with the assurance of hurricane protection.

Spanish - Mediterranean Style Living Room -

To keep in scale with the architecture of this room with its thirteen-foot ceilings I wanted to increase the size of all the moldings. A cost-effective way to do this is by adding a molding below the crown and one above the baseboards, then painting all of the moldings as well as the wall in-between all the same color - Voila, instant luxury large crown and baseboard moldings.

I wanted to create a balance between the interior design and architecture of this space - So, in the living room, I created two faux Mediterranean arches on opposite walls with a large custom built-in framed mirror to bring in the light and color from the intercostal waterway. This also allowed me to move the sofa and two chairs off the walls in order to create a more intimate conversation space. As you can see I repeated the arch in the foyer using a large shell encrusted mirror, this way the elements relate but with different mirrors.

Please note that all pictures were taken prior to any accessories being placed

Spanish - Mediterranean Style Interior Design Details -

The transformation of the tray-ceiling has added a new level of grandeur not only to the living room but to the entire home. Placed in the center is a large traditional wrought iron chandelier hanging from a matching custom acanthus-leaf medallion. The ceiling is now covered with a luxurious linen wallpaper that illuminates the space with its sparkling metallic nickel finish.

I love to keep an overall balance and consistency throughout the home by repeating and mixing up different elements and colors from room to room. Please note that all of the furniture has an old-world Mediterranean - coastal driftwood like finish, and the custom sofas and chairs in both the living room and family room have large nickel/silver nail-heads. I love that the ends of this 72”x42” credenza have concaved doors and drawers that match the faux painted Mediterranean arches.

Custom Drapery and Baseboard Detail -

I very often use an accent opening edge to my custom drapery but I have never seen this detail continued along the floor at the same height as the newly built up baseboard -

This in essence transforms a drapery detail into an architectural element - Then I will match all of the doors and moldings in same rich brown color.

Spanish - Mediterranean Style Piano Room -

The Piano Room is the perfect example of what can be created from just repurposing items existing in the home. I continued with the enlarged crown and baseboards as well as matching the marble and wood sile on the foyer’s pony-wall. I installed matching custom drapery and then I moved the existing chandelier from the Dining Room with the same custom ceiling medallion. I decided to use the large carved mirror from over the sofa and hung it vertically on the center wall, then just relocated one elegant black grand piano and you have a simple but luxurious Piano Room - Please note that after I took these pictures I moved the new rug from the living room to under the piano to allow warmth and acoustics to the room.

Trditional Home Office with a Tropical Caribbean Style -

This Traditional Spanish - Mediterranean home office is another dramatic “Before and After HGTV moment”. We increased the crown and baseboards to match however I mixed up the color scheme as per the fabric with its traditional acanthus leaf-pattern, I chose the off-white background color for the doors and woodwork to lighten up the room and give it a more tropical Caribbean look. The wall color is the grayed down aqua that relates to the faux arches in the living room. For a more dramatic home office I choose to accent the fifth wall (the ceiling) with the olive green.

Elements of this Traditional Home Office -

I love how the ceiling medallion has the feeling of wrought iron - I was debating on painting it a rusty black to match the forged wrought iron chandelier but in doing that when I painted the accent color (wall color) in the negative space of the medallion it just died, buy painting it the white it gave it a more tropical island decor.

I love to create the visual aspect of architectural columns by many different means - Within this traditional home office, I wanted a grand yet simple presidential backdrop behind this stately executive desk.

Here I framed the desk by flanking it with two matching file cabinets and drapery side panels that are the same width as the cabinets. With the color scheme being on the tropical Caribbean side I wanted to keep all of the furnishings on the dark brown, heavely craved and masculine side so I choose the two rustic solid wood, white-washed lamps that relate to the off-white woodwork and the backs of the chairs and I think their tan rough linen shades relate to the Spanish Terracotta floors.

My client and I both loved this old-world traditional executive desk and file cabinet with its very distressed finish and heavy wood carvings sitting under the double-tier hand-forged wrought iron chandelier. I must admit that I was having visions of the captain's quarters on an old pirates galleon cruising the Caribbean seas.

Once again, I am adding continuity from the living room furniture by using nail-heads on the executive desk chair and the two sitting chairs with their off-white linen back that adds some contrast to all the rich brown.

Also, please note that the tabletop on the wrought iron side table matches the detail on top of the faux painted Mediterranean arches found in the living room and foyer.

Spanish - Mediterranean Family & Dining Room -

Some rooms just say it all with the "Before and After" Pictures - I think this entire home remodel is a great example of just that. It’s not offten being an Interior Designer in south Florida do I have the chance to have inspiration fron a stone/bolder fireplace with its flanking windows, sunken family room surrounded by a short pony-wall within its open-concept architecture that also includes the Kitchen and Dining area.

My inspiration for adding the stone to the existing pony-wall and topping it with the Crema marble top with its wood molding detail, For me this gave the area the feeling of an open Mediterranean courtyard - I repeated this detail in the Foyer as well.

Spanish - Mediterranean Style Interior Design Details -

I love this fabric I found for the custom drapery - It has an anvil/leaf pattern in aqua, which is similar to the accent color that I used in the living room but with the addition of the lime green, all on muddied brown/cream background with its south-west Indian graphics and it's all tied together with a rustic worn patina. There was just enough brown accent color to allow me to use the same brown fabric for the custom drapery detail as I had in the Living Room. For me on a subconscious level the fabric and large bolder firplace reminds me of the Grand Bohemian Hotel in Ashville (Link)

The existing centerpiece for the table is made out of solid molded metal and takes two people to move it - I designed a matching table runner with coordinating fabrics, rope, and fringe as well as recovering the dining chairs in the accent lime green. I love that the rug has the same colors but a bit bolder.

Orginally the only lighting in this room was too many high-hat lights and during the home remolding process, we removed about a dozen. I relocated the existing dining area chandelier to the new piano room and then purchased some new Mediterranean style wrought iron light fixtures, one large chandelier to fill the space over the dining table, as well as the two tall sconces flanking the artwork, one smaller but tall chandelier to relate to the stone fireplace, and five hanging pendant lights over the island, not to mention the indirect lighting over the wall-unit.

Spanish - Mediterranean Style Architectural Details -

The client wanted to keep their existing wall-unit so I designed a platform to be built-in to the newly enlarged baseboard that raised the furniture by eleven inches. In keeping with the architectural scale of the room I also took advantage that the garage and office doors were set into a niche so to expand the visual size I framed the outside of the niche and added a header with a molding and crown and then repeated this detail at each door throughout the home remodel.

Spanish - Mediterranean Style Master Bedroom -

In keeping with the rest of this clients interior design and home remodeling project I think the master bedroom was just as dramatic. I wanted to transform the old dirty looking faux finish walls and heavy burgundy and gold drapes that reminded me of a dark funeral parlor into a fresh tropical British Colonial - Bahamas style master bedroom with a relaxing feeling of a resort right from the Caribbean Isles.

This is one of my introductory stories that I tell every client - To beware that there may come a time when an item we love, may not be available - not to worry, everytime this has happened the Universe has found us something even more spectacular and works better within the interior design style of the room.

This is particularly true and unique with this client - during my presentation to my "Blind client", I described everything in great detail from colors, shapes, and sizes - I told him that the fabric has some Aqua, similar to the aqua that we used in the other rooms with the addition of a dramatic tropical royal blue with an off-white that outlines the pattern, all on a background of a rich taupe - beige - I also explained the dresser with its matching nightstands has cut-out scrollwork backed by an antique mirror. Over the nightstands are custom framed mirrors with matching sconces - I have used this architectural element in many different styles and I love how it flanks and frames the bed as well as frees the nightstands of any clutter due to lamps. The client understands and can visualize the entire room.

As for the master bedroom windows, they consisted of a large three wall bay-window with an additional wall of glass sliding doors and one side window, floor to ceiling (12 Ft.) Needless to say, we needed a copious amount of fabric and I had to notify my client that the manufacture did not have enough fabric - He was sincerely heartbroken, I believe that due to his blindness he relies much more on his visualization and imagination that allowed him to see his Mediterranean - British Colonial - Bahamas style master bedroom better than many of my sighted clients. I told him not to worry and I found this alternative fabric that I feel suits the interior design decor 100 times better. The first thing I was excited about was the addition of the lime green, I love the combination of aqua and lime green and second was that the pattern was reminiscent of iron scrolls all on a crisp white background. Not to mention that the second fabric was 1/3 of the price and allowed us to stretch the budget.

Now all of the soft goods for the master bedroom cordinate beautifully with the aqua, royal blue, lime green and soft white in the drapes, rug, swivel chairs, and bedding.

South Florida’s Spanish Mediterranean Style

Interior Design and Home Remodeling

In closing, I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed working with this client who was completely blind but with my detailed descriptions, I think he could visualize better than my sighted clients. He understood every aspect of both the interior design aspects of his Spanish Mediterranean Revival style as well as all of the architectural design elements that were incorporated in his home's remodel located on the intercoastal waterway in Boca Raton. What I love about the Spanish Mediterranean architecture and interior design that is so prevalent in South Florida is the warmth of the colors and the romantic details from the old world decor. If you would like to see more Spanish Mediterranean and Italian architecture and interiors please feel free to click on the following links - My blog link "Interior Inspirations from Vizcaya" and "Vizcaya.org"