When the title, “Mediterranean-style” comes up in discussion, people typically assume the new moniker has something to do with Tuscan, northern Italian living and architecture. While that description would fall into the same category, it’s not the all-inclusive criterion for the Mediterranean style. In fact, the style ranges across a wide region of countries and choices of living décor. That includes the white buildings on the ocean island of Santorini, the Spanish sands of Ibiza, and the traditional southern French coastal appearance of the Riviera.
A Combination of Outside and Inside
However, the most important aspect of all these examples is the key approach of a combined indoor-outdoor approach to living. Everything in the home is designed for a minimal approach toward wide space, easy comfort, and enjoyment of the outside, even if one has to be inside to do it. Wide windows don’t hurt either, allowing the utilization of natural light to highlight colors and textures on furniture and materials. It’s an ideal approach for Los Angeles interior designers in Southern California, given the weather in the area is so similar to the Mediterranean region most of the year.
Interestingly, the Mediterranean style is not an avant-garde new invention in 2023. It combines a style, color scheme, and cultural perspective that has been existing for centuries in old southern Europe. When one combines the wide range of input and influence from over 20 different countries in the Mediterranean region geographically, interior design Los Angeles options grow exponentially.
Travel Makes Styles Go Around
There are variations in style. A good number of the approaches became very popular in the 1930s after they first appeared in Southern France. Since that time, it has come back in recurring waves, most often seen in resorts, hotels, and restaurants. And because of that fact, the style captured in photographs by tourists then migrated as people wanted to recreate the same look (as well as experience memory) in their homes elsewhere. Over time, so many different pieces of the style have been recreated. Today it’s fairly easy to generate new versions of the décor in Los Angeles, a hotbed of cultures from around the world deposited in one concentrated place.
A Blend of Old and New
One of the advantages of the Mediterranean style, in addition to the above, is the fact that it also incorporates older architecture extremely well. It’s particularly adapted to blending contemporary fixtures and furniture with surroundings that include Spanish colonial style, Tuscan style, Greek island motifs, and stucco exterior. The bigger the rooms, the better the Mediterranean style works with the application, especially when the area includes an outdoor footprint as well. Many homeowners utilize the style with modern pool settings as well. Los Angeles works so well with the style given the typically warmer climate, it’s surprising when one finds the Mediterranean décor inside as well.
Adaptable for Indoor Changes as Well
Of course, climates like California and Florida naturally flow with the Mediterranean approach, but the style can be applied indoors anywhere in the U.S., even when it is -10 below outside in the dead of snowy winter. The style is so flexible, it’s borrowed repeatedly in corporate buildings and hotels again and again. Fortunately, Los Angeles residents always get to appreciate more of it outdoors too. And that difference can make a home the place everyone wants to visit when a homeowner decides to have a bash or a bit of a get-together in winter or summer, Los Angeles style.
Among interior design approaches, the Mediterranean style has been one of the most lasting in the 20th century for a reason, and the next doesn’t look to be any different.
