Jeff Doubet teaches Spanish interiors construction tips for blending modern and traditional design elements into the historic Spanish homes of Santa Barbara. In this post I share design resources, photos and how-to tips for building arches, niches, plaster fireplaces and range hoods. Ideas you can incorporate into your own Santa Barbara Spanish style home.
These modern ideas can substantially increase the perceived value of your own Spanish interior design. The special interior design details in this local Riviera neighborhood home were a collaboration between the homeowner and myself. Be sure to check out our Contemporary Modern Spanish exterior, as well.
Designing Spanish Interiors in Santa Barbara, CA
Furnishings, appliances, art and other home goods are a big part of Spanish-style interior design. Equally important in custom Santa Barbara style Spanish home renovations: designing + building improvements to the interior architecture.
Jeff Doubet explains what Spanish-style Interior Architecture is: I believe it is the charm-giving elements that are permanently built into the interior of your custom home. These types of upgrades can include thicker walls, arches, niches, plaster fireplaces and range hoods.
ABOVE: For the Spanish-style kitchen renovation, a black 36″ La Cornue range was specified. See my blog post on how this custom plaster hood was designed and built.
The design features of our custom range hood were simultaneously planned while designing our living room custom fireplace, above. Both are within 50 feet of each other and it was important to the overall design of the main level that these elements worked well together.
Building Spanish Home Interiors
Blending modern and traditional design elements into Spanish-style historic homes for new generations to enjoy is the goal. There are many steps a homeowner will take as they create an inspiring home and landscape. It starts with a thoughtful design concept for the space(s). Then, there are technical working drawings, building permits, construction and interior decorating.
BEFORE Photo: The interior was stripped down to the studs. A clean slate if you will for the design ideas that will be built into this space.
AFTER Photo: The completed interior design included a new plaster fireplace with decorative hood, thicker interior walls and a staircase redesign.
Designing Spanish Home Interiors
Interior Design Sketch: This was my earliest design drawing for the living room. It provides an overall view of what the room could become after suggested design elements are built.
Ideas included redesigning the fireplace and staircase, as well as a new decorative HVAC register.
AFTER Photo: A close up of how the Spanish staircase design turned out. Scroll further to see the construction process for how it was built.
Here is a photo showing how a new high quality firebox replaced the old masonry firebox. The original firebox opening was too “short” as a living room focal point. The entire brick chimney and fireplace were removed. A new foundation was poured to support this new firebox.
ABOVE: This photo shows how the early fireplace design concept was mocked up on the new firebox, using thin Luan plywood (and painted white). The homeowner wanted to see the scale and proportion of the new fireplace design, before real construction began.
After seeing the fireplace mock up, the homeowner requested that I tweak the design to have a more modern look and feel. This is my revised sketch for the fireplace design.
Spanish Interior Design Construction Photos
Construction of a thicker wall enhanced the appearance of the elliptical arch framing the view into the living room.
Structural plywood was specified by the project engineer, and enables the construction of the see-through niche at the staircase landing.
Developing beautiful Spanish Interiors in Santa Barbara
Creating beautiful, high quality Spanish-style homes requires an investment in the special focal points of your interior design. Employing independent Artisans is one way to build these custom elements such as fireplaces and range hoods into your home.
Here, a talented team of local Artisans handcraft the custom Spanish-style fireplace design. See more photos of Jeff Doubét custom designed Spanish-style fireplaces under construction throughout Santa Barbara and Montecito, California.
Fast forward a few months later and you can see how everything turned out. A simple color palette works well with the built elements. The black staircase handrail, balusters and dark stained stair treads look nice with the black hearth.
Designing and building a Spanish staircase
For the redesign of this historic Spanish-style staircase, I developed a second concept rendering. It was a starting point for the new design discussions with the homeowner.
BEFORE Photo: The original staircase was a simple wood railing and 2 x 2 balusters. Previous generations of homeowners had painted it white.
Spanish-style staircase design: Within this design sketch I illustrate a vision for a new wrought iron railing that would curve down onto short, flared plaster wing walls. The first three steps of the staircase will have a curve to them. They would lead to a small landing, and then to the main climb of the staircase. Also note the idea for double framing walls at the elliptical archway, and a new see-through niche at the base of the stair landing.
My ideas were well received, and a preliminary full size model was proposed. Here, the Spanish staircase is being mocked up using thin Luan plywood. The main goal of the mock up was to visualize the proposed three-dimensional forms. The contractor and crew used this to figure out how to permanently build the sophisticated compound curves of the wing walls.
A closer look at how the general contractor used thin craft wood to gently bend and “skin” over a wood frame. Craft wood can be purchased directly on Amazon.
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After the mock up had done its purpose, it was removed along with the wood stair railings. A new clean air return vent was installed. Here, the see-through niche and elliptical archway are in the drywall stage of construction. See Artisans applying drywall mud to a Spanish arch.
Spanish-style staircase design
The homeowner is a talented designer, and decided to develop technical drawings for the project. It was the compound curved wing walls at the bottom of the wrought iron railing that was everyone’s biggest challenge.
The CAD drawing he developed for the Spanish staircase design was helpful for the wrought iron railing fabricator and installer, as well.
And this is how all of our hard work paid off. The contemporary Spanish staircase railing is quite mesmerizing to look at. The flat black wrought iron and dark stained wood stair treads contrast beautifully with the light European oak floors.
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This photo showcases how the custom Spanish-style iron railing balusters terminate into the plaster wing walls. This shot also shows how nicely the arched wood stair tread design turned out.
Here you can see how the plaster wing walls for the railing partially protrude into the living room. Note also how the see-through niche received a short section of matching wrought iron railing. Contemporary art + décor: Beautiful combinations for modern Spanish-style interior design.
Spanish kitchen design ideas
The color black is a prominent color specified in the interior design of this contemporary Spanish home in Santa Barbara. In the kitchen, a black La Cornue range was paired with black kitchen cabinets and other accent pieces.
The Spanish range hood was hand fabricated in cement plaster. To see and learn more about the process, see my blog post Spanish Range Hood Design, Photos and Resources. There you will see more of this very talented and featured Artisan.
The completed Spanish kitchen design includes reclaimed wood ceiling beams and open shelving. They look great with the light stone countertops and white backsplash tiles at the range.
Well friend, this wraps another site visit episode in beautiful Santa Barbara, CA. I hope you enjoyed learning how to infuse more Santa Barbara Style into your own Spanish home interior design project. Scroll to explore more helpful links and resources for designing and building your own Spanish-style home and landscape.
