June 13, 2007 -- In today’s cookie-cutter world of laminate flooring and polyurethane molding, achieving an authentic old-world style, such as Tuscan or Mediterranean, can be difficult. Tuscan style, with its full arches, tiles, textured walls, and rough-hewn wood floors and surfaces makes a bold and artistic, yet extremely comforting and welcoming statement. Although the look can be approximated with modern building techniques and mass-produced flooring, cabinetry, and woodworking, the key word is approximated.
Crucial to creating a whole-house feel with a look such as Tuscan, says leading San Francisco Bay Area kitchen designer Kimberly Larzelere, is working with a company that delivers complementing one-of-a-kind home design details which can only be achieved by woodworking artisans skilled in custom woodworking and design. “All the different surfaces—the countertop materials, the flooring materials, the textures on the walls, the hood element, the tiles, the hand hewn beams—it’s all of those elements that complete the old-world character of the space. These need to integrate with the architectural features like the arched openings and high ceilings, ironwork and lighting fixtures.”
When possible, Larzelere also appreciates dealing with a single resource for the individual elements in a home, because they can provide a cohesive look throughout. “I deal with one specific company whose finishes and home design techniques, which many other companies cannot achieve, flow throughout all the different elements and tie them together,” she says.
“There are a lot of companies out there that mass-produce carved, detailed moulding and woodwork on a laser machine,” Larzelere continues. Working with Renaissance Old World, Inc, a designer and manufacturer that utilizes European age-old hand custom carving, planing and distressing techniques long lost from the modern world allows her to give her clients a distinctive look.
Architectural Depot
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