All-white rooms have been a design mainstay for years now. Floors, walls and woodwork are all painted white and, though it’s a look we like just fine, it is sometimes a visual relief (and a huge inspiration) to see spaces that break the mold.
We’ve seen how the mere mention of painting over original woodwork can lead to the verbal equivalent of a fistfight on many blogs, but it isn’t easy to find good, modern examples of spaces where wood was kept natural. We put in some time to track down places where the (unpainted) woodwork is working.
We love the way the original woodwork of this craftsman house in Portland was incorporated into the design. The beautiful (hand painted) magnolia blossom walls complement the heavy wood, rather than fighting it. The result is one of our favorite rooms we’ve seen in a while.
When we started to really look at rooms with unpainted woodwork, we were surprised by how well the natural wood pairs with dark walls. We love the drama of this room:
And the velvety black walls in Nicole of Making it Lovely‘s Victorian home strike just the right note:
Dark walls aren’t the only way to go. She painted an adjacent room – also filled with lots of oak woodwork – a blush pink, and that works beautifully too.
We love this minimalist and modern San Francisco Victorian! It’s very serene, and the unpainted woodwork adds a perfect amount of texture – making the space much more interesting and unique than it would be if everything were painted white.
Natural wood also looks beautiful in more rustic spaces, like this stone house in Massachusetts:
It’s nice to see modern spaces that include unpainted woodwork too. The wood window casings keep this all-white space from looking too sterile.
What do you think? Do you like this look or are you itching to grab a paintbrush and paint it white?