Many seem to love Spanish interiors, but not everyone knows how to create them. I thought sharing a Before and After transformation would be a great way to help you get your head around what can be done with a tired interior.
Scroll to learn how you can achieve a Santa Barbara style interior. You will see and learn about things like upgrading wall finishes, beautiful flooring options and transitions. Also, how to design architectural details like authentic arches and impressive custom fireplaces.
Spanish Interiors: Before and After Photo Case Studies
I like to add Before and After examples of Spanish home transformations to the Creating Spanish Style Homes Blog… so please visit often!
BEFORE Photo 1: As you can see, this home had very outdated interior spaces. It had had a Colonial vibe to it with painted white railing balusters, leaded glass front door, etc.
AFTER Photo: The completely redesigned space. Here you can see how we removed the railing and built long wrap around steps (eliminating the need for a railing).
The homeowner also wanted to connect a family room to this new open concept floor plan. So we designed and built a thick arched passageway to it (as seen in far right of photo). A new Spanish bar area was built. A new arched top front door coordinates nicely with the arches in the room. Oak wood and terra cotta clay floors were also major upgrades in this renovation.
BEFORE Photo 2: Here is the outdated entry foyer, staircase and view to the family room before we got started. As you can see by the After photo below… you can do a lot with your remodel just by upgrading the surfaces (both interior and exterior).
AFTER Photo: The Spanish interior design transformation of the entry foyer included new finishes to the walls, stairs and flooring. The staircase was clad in dark stained oak and rows of Spanish deco tiles were added to some of the risers. A new iron railing was fabricated. An Old World skim coat on the drywall modernized the walls.
I often recommend borders of clay tiles in floor layouts as way to bring the charm of early California Spanish home interior design into new remodels.
Spanish Interiors : Designs by Jeff Doubet
I like to create fresh and unique Spanish home interiors—interpretations of Old World features that were incorporated into the historic Spanish homes of the 1920s and 1930s.
These special Spanish interiors had design elements that included: fireplaces with decorative hoods, plaster kitchen range hoods, built-in art niches, archways into other rooms. You can study examples of each, shown throughout this build.
As an aside: It’s really fun when I visit a construction site and see a beat up copy of my book Creating Spanish Style Homes. It makes me feel like my clients are really gleaning inspiration and practical advice from it. Check out all the Post-it notes earmarking favorite pages.
On this job site visit I was meeting with the homeowners and their General Contractor. We discussed a wide variety of Spanish interior design upgrades that were possible during this stage of their construction project.
A Jeff Doubét recommended product for designing and building a charming, high-quality Spanish style home and landscape. A 240 page, full color Coffee Table Book.
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Planning Spanish Interiors
Planning Spanish interiors include designing rooms and entire floorplans with upgrades to fireplaces, kitchen range hoods, wall niches and ceiling beams. Paint colors, flooring, cabinetry, tiles, windows and doors are also things that can get overwhelming.
My key recommendation is to take your time and enjoy the process. It’s a journey:)
Here, a couple of weeks had passed and the project was progressing nicely. The new Spanish hearth was well under way. The homeowner was personally working out the overall design of the fireplace. Per my book, he had placed blue tape to visualize and plan the final dimensions of the Spanish fireplace mantel and hood combination.
He had a specific flat screen TV planned for above the firebox. I mentioned that I thought his initial mock up was a bit “wide” for the overall all space. I used his rough dimensions and sketched a few suggestions for refining his early mantel layout.
AFTER Photo: This is how their Spanish fireplace mantel and hood turned out. I thought everything turned out really nice. Notice how the pair of plaster corbels make the mantel shelf feasible, and how the flat TV floats over the slant back plaster hood?
Spanish interiors can also have design elements incorporated into fireplaces, such as custom fabricated wrought fireplace screens. This particular design is permanently mounted, and has hinged doors for easy access to stoke the crackling oak fire. A slab of Texas limestone was incorporated as the durable hearth. A great spot to sit by the fire.
Jeff Doubet Custom Spanish Interior Designs
My custom designs for Spanish interiors often include special upgrades to walls. I like to propose double framing of walls in key locations. With careful planning, it enables you to strategically build wall niches and thick passageways, like the examples below.
The extra cost and effort to do so will pay off in the end. The result: an overall higher perceived value to your Spanish home, but more importantly… a cozy home you can be proud of.
Another example: Building out the Spanish-style bar in the living room with double framed walls provides the space to actually incorporate this oversized wall niche.
AFTER Photo: This is how the Spanish bar turned out. A custom mirror was cut to fit inside the arched top niche. Bar ware and bottles are arranged on the floating wood shelves in front of the mirror—giving this space an amazing look.
A close up photo of the custom cut arched top mirror, installed in the oversized wall niche. Once the mirror was in place, the dark stained wood shelves were installed.
As you can see… a mirrored wall niche like this is a nice upgrade for Spanish interiors.
Spanish Interior Design Details
When designing Spanish interiors, I like to include simple upgrade details such as these decorative vent covers available on Amazon.
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You can also purchase other Spanish interior design decor products like Arch top mirror designs on Amazon. Another way to infuse some affordable design elements into your Spanish interior theme.
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Spanish Interior Design Materials & Finishes
Reclaimed brick can be a gorgeous and unexpected material to incorporate into your Spanish home interior design. This client has excellent taste in materials and decided to go a little bit unconventional in their Spanish kitchen design choices.
The authentic Italian brick installation makes for an amazing backdrop material for the custom built plaster range hood.
Setting aside the success of this design combo, the project brings the homeowner great joy in their accomplishment. They have traveled to Italy numerous times as they researched materials and finishes for their project.
Back home, they were able to find and source used brick from Italy via a company that sources reclaimed European building materials. Now, they have daily fond memories of their trips to Italy right there in a main gathering place- their kitchen!
A close up photo of the Old World plaster finish applied to the handcrafted Spanish range hood. The design of your hood can also be an understated design element. Surrounded by other rich materials and finishes is what makes a warm and inviting space to work in.
More great choices the homeowners made for a truly unique and special Spanish-style kitchen. Note how the colors and veining in the granite countertops compliment the reclaimed brick backsplash, and the red knobs on the 48″ Wolf range.
Here, you can see how the brick backsplash coordinates with the terra cotta flooring. Also note the dark stained wood cabinets with custom wrought iron hardware on all.
Their eat-in kitchen has a long wood table with bench style seating and upholstered chairs on each end. A wall mounted TV is centered between the flanking wine bar cabinetry. A great gathering spot to entertain guests while they mingle in this large eat-in kitchen.
The refrigerated wine storage in the custom dark wood cabinet has refrigerator drawers beneath it. You can see how the oversized wrought iron drawer and door hardware coordinate nicely with other custom elements like the handcrafted iron chandelier, above.
Spanish Interior Design: Lighting
Lighting in a Spanish interiors is very important when building out a high-end renovation. The homeowners invested a lot of time picking out their Spanish lighting for this home.
A pair of handmade ceiling mounted iron lights with seeded glass were installed in the entry foyer. A nice choice to consider when you only have standard 8 ft ceilings (or a tight space where pendant lights or chandeliers will not work).
All of the wrought iron chandeliers and wall sconces were hand fabricated by a local lighting expert.
This handmade two tier iron chandelier was mounted directly to the ridge beam. Advanced planning with your electrician is a must (in order to hide any evidence of electrical connections).
Planning Your Spanish Floor Materials & Combinations
There are many different options in materials when creating a Spanish interior. Combinations of them can make things really interesting, particularly if you want or need to break things up.
A terra cotta floor was the preferred choice for this eat-in kitchen (and the entry foyer). Terra cotta flooring was chosen for it’s durability and easy cleaning in these areas.
The flooring flows nicely from the front door and right into the entertaining kitchen area.
Generally, I prefer to keep the combinations of materials to a minimum, but sometimes there are good reasons to change things up. Tile in wet locations like kitchens, baths, laundry… and wood floors to warm up spaces like living and family rooms, bedrooms etc.
Choosing Spanish Flooring Tile Combinations
On this day, the homeowners and I met to discuss tile layout and transition options between the kitchen, foyer and living room.
We leaned the Spanish tiles up on the stair risers as we looked at how the terra cotta floor tile (above) looked with the hardwood sample (below).
We ended up deciding to set large square terra cotta clay floor tiles on the diagonal, and large rectangular tiles of the same material were installed as borders and baseboards.
Wide plank oak flooring was installed in other rooms like the family room, living room and bedrooms. Note how a row of Spanish deco tiles made an attractive transition between the hardwood floor lower level, and the terra cotta floors above.
The subtle color combinations in Spanish deco tiles the homeowners chose, blend elegantly with the oak staircase and flooring in the family room. I’m very proud of the talented homeowners who made wonderful design choices throughout their project!