By Joshua Allen, Contributor
One of the great things about living in New England is the fact that a lot of our homes come with a historic background! We at Joshua Allen Design absolutely love designing and decorating historic interiors and today we want to pass along some of our favorite tips for updating, refreshing and modernizing your historic home without losing the period-specific details that make the home unique!
- First things first, scrub away the dirt: older homes have a tendency to collect dust and dirt, so it’s important to clean up all those hard-to-get spots where dirt accumulates to make your home shine its brightest.
- Next up is repainting: repainting can have a huge impact in any space, especially one that hasn’t been painted in a while. We love the way a good coat of new paint can completely transform a space, and this is certainly the case for historic homes as well! If you want to keep things classic, Benjamin Moore has some awesome historical-period-correct color palettes to choose from, and if you want to switch it up there are plenty of modern and trendy choices available as well.
- Love the traditional and antique New England look and feel of your home? Show off its interesting history: if you have a cool piece of architecture or furniture like built-in cabinets, drawers, hardwood floors, a grand fireplace or ornate woodworking, show that off! Rather than trying to replace, repaint, or cover up these features, we believe that proudly highlighting and restoring them (when possible, of course) adds to the visual story of your home’s unique history.
- Our last piece of advice is one of our very favorites, and one that we recommend to almost all of our design clients: use at least one antique piece in your home. We bring an antique piece into almost every one of our designs, because we feel they bring such character and charm to any space. An antique piece fits in beautifully with the styles of many homes in New England, and incorporating a period-specific piece into your historic or antique home brings even more of its history to light.
As always, we’re here to help! Drop us a line at 724-454-4024 or visit our website (www.joshuaallendesign.com) to contact us. We’d love to help you bring your historic home to life!
