As interior designers working in Winter Park – home to some of Central Florida’s prettiest and most architecturally interesting properties – we get this question a lot. Our answer is kind of.

We feel that if your home has an obvious architectural style, such as Mediterranean, it makes sense to honor that in your interior selections. That doesn’t mean living with things you really dislike. We’ve taken many Mediterranean homes in this area and transformed them into a Santa Barbara style – keeping the best of the Spanish-style features but making them feel fresh with lighter floors, less ornate details, and cool neutral tones.

Cohesion is an important aspect of design and the exterior of a home creates an expectation for what you’ll find inside. Walking into a newly-built, modern, linear home and finding heavy antiques in every room would feel disjointed and poorly planned. That’s why we suggest choosing a home with a non-specific style that can easily adapt to your preferred design, or one that feels in line with the furnishings and décor you’re drawn to.  And remember that just like the interior, an exterior can often be updated and refreshed with a new color scheme, new lighting, and some relatively simple updates.

If you need help figuring how to merge your home’s architectural style with the interior furnishings, our Winter Park interior design firm can help! Contact us.