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Northern VA Remodeling: Farmhouse Chic Design

Farmhouse chic (also known as farmhouse design) is a very popular design style right now. You can achieve a farmhouse chic look in any room of your home. Check out our blogs to see how you can make each room in your home more farmhouse chic.

Farmhouse chic is all about being comfortable and getting cozy, so snuggle up on the couch and get ready for our top five favorite farmhouse chic living rooms!

Shiplap In Living Rooms

Our first favorite farmhouse living room includes a staple of farmhouse chic design, and you can thank HGTV’s Joanna Gaines for this one. Yes, you guessed it — shiplap! Shiplap became really popular last year, as we saw several different ways to incorporate it into your home and various ways to dress it up. This year, it continues to increase in popularity.

Commonly used in bedrooms and bathrooms, shiplap can also be used in your living room to create a farmhouse chic vibe. This living room includes a painted shiplap wall, a nice touch that adds to farmhouse design style. I also love how they played up the home design look by including a chalkboard above the sofa. The neutral color palette and green plants also contribute to the farmhouse look in this cozy living room. 

Sliding Barn Doors In Great Falls, VA 

In addition to shiplap, another common element used in farmhouse chic home design is sliding barn doors. From pops of color to reclaimed wooden doors, sliding barn doors add character to any room in your home.

This remodel in Great Falls has a beautiful sliding barn door from the dining room to the living room. Although the door has been painted, it still maintains its weathered style, which plays up to the farmhouse design look.

Farmhouse Living Room In Leesburg, VA

This living room in Leesburg has many farmhouse design elements. First, a lot of wooden features exist. From the exposed beams and wall to the hardwood floors, this living room doesn’t fall short of chic. The stone wall and fireplace also add a nice, cozy touch to the living room. The neutral color palette tops off the design in this living room.

Reclaimed Wood In McLean, VA 

Reclaimed wood adds a farmhouse chic design component to your remodel. This renovation in McLean includes reclaimed wood throughout the home. In the living room, a strip of reclaimed wood runs across the top of the stone fireplace, which makes the space cozier and more comfortable.

Again, a neutral color palette in and the large window allows for natural light to shine through and light up the living area. The hardwood floors and decor make the space feel warm.

Farmhouse Chic Remodel in Reston, VA

Last but not least is a beautiful remodel in Reston. Many design elements exist in this living room, including the focal point: The white fireplace with the elegant woodworking detail. This element sets the stage for a farmhouse chic vibe.

The sconces that frame the fireplace are also a beautiful nod, and the greenery and sunflowers by the fireplace also play up the vibe. Minimum clutter, a neutral color palette, and hardwood flooring are all elements of this home design.

 Northern VA Contractors

If you’re looking for a farmhouse chic design style, we can help you! Keep the following farmhouse chic design elements in mind to create the perfect living room:

• Choose hardwood flooring
• Keep clutter to a minimum
• Maintain a neutral color palette
• Go green by adding plants to the space
• Let natural light in with large windows
• Add character with sliding barn doors
• Use a touch of reclaimed wood
• Add a shiplap wall

If you’d like to schedule a free design consultation, call us at 703-961-7707 or reach us by email at Hello@MossBuildingandDesign.com. We’d love to hear more about your project!

Join Moss Building & Design at the Dulles Expo Center for the Capital Remodel + Garden Show from Feb. 23 to 25, 2018. Here’s how to make the most of your experience, whether you’re a first-time attendee or a home show pro:

• Get up, and get excited. From Pinterest and Houzz to Fixer Upper and Property Brothers, we know that you have tons of house inspiration. However, it doesn’t compare to actually meeting the people who can make that dream home a reality (like Moss Building & Design in Northern Virginia).
  
  This Home Show is the best excuse to leave the house, so get ready to see HGTV’s Going Yard’s Chris and Peyton Lambton on Feb. 23 and 24, as they talk landscaping and renovations.
  
  Chris also joined the team of HGTV Dream Home and HGTV Smart Home and DIY Network’s Yard Crashers and Blog Cabin.
  
  In addition to the line-up, Joanie Sprague of TLC’s Trading Spaces “shares expert advice and personal tips and tricks for remodeling, home improvement, design ideas, and much more” on Feb. 25.
  
  Joanie also appeared on DIY Network’s Run My Renovation and Man Caves.
• Bring a mini version of your vision board. Attending a home show can be intimidating, especially for first-timers. However, with hundreds of vendors and options for home improvement, lawn maintenance, and interior design, this experience opens your creative mind to all of your home’s countless possibilities.
  
  You’ll envision your home in a brand-new light after talking to experts in lighting, windows, landscaping, and more. This is a free-range opportunity for those with an interest in updating, enhancing, or creating a new look or feature for their home or garden. You’ll be amazed by what’s possible, especially with Moss Building & Design.
  
  Pro Tip: Visit the main stage on Feb. 24 at 2 p.m. to see what MOSS 360, our virtual reality design capability, can do for your home improvement project.
• Prepare to build long-lasting relationships. With so many people in attendance, you’ll make a few new friends at this event. Whether it’s a local gardening expert, interior designer, or another homeowner, these people provide great contacts for future projects. Check out MOSS’ Booth 721 to get personalized advice from our interior designers and sales consultants.
• Ask questions about your home. Vendors come from all parts of the industry with specialized expertise and skills for your home. If you’re unsure of your specifics, ask around. You’ll be able to learn more about your home’s soil type, window treatments, landscaping opportunities, and remodeling potential. Stop by to have all your questions answered by the MOSS team.  They have the knowledge and skill to tackle your home’s biggest projects.
• Inquire about new products, trends, and services for your home. Be a landscape inspiration for the entire neighborhood, thanks to floral ideas from four featured gardens. Walk through more than “3,500 square feet of haute horticulture” that’s “complete with water features, modern gardening accessories and lush greenery, and flowers.”
  
  The featured gardens are designed by Vista Pro Landscape and Design, Meadows Farms, Blue Sky Landscaping, Premium Lawn and Landscape, and Custom Stonescaping, LLC.
  
  According to the Show’s website, you’ll “find exactly what you need to recreate [the featured gardens] at home when you visit the Flower Market, provided by Merrifield Garden Center. Filled with fresh flowers, plants, and gorgeous home decor, get unique items to refresh your home – inside and out!”
• Consult with the best companies for your next project. Instead of researching online reviews and talking to your friends and family about which remodeling company is best, meet our MOSS team! Get in-person advice and try out MOSS 360 while you’re at the show.

With more than 265 exhibitors across the spectrum of interior design, you’ll find hundreds of ideas for renovations in your home and garden.

This Chantilly Home Show costs $12 for adults, $9 for children 13 and older, $8 each for groups, and $3 for children 6 to 12 years old. Free admission for children ages 5 and younger. Use promo code MOSS to save money!

Click here to get tickets to the Virginia Capital Remodel + Garden Show,

Shiplap. Rustic Decor. Deep, wide kitchen sinks. Reclaimed wood. Sliding barn doors. Large cozy furniture. 

These all describe farmhouse chic design elements, which are seemingly everywhere you look these days. From Chip and Joanna Gaines on HGTV’s “Fixer Upper” to dozens of pages of farmhouse home design on Houzz, Pinterest, and other inspirational interior design websites, it’s truly a design style that has taken the world by storm.

So, what exactly is farmhouse chic interior design?

Farmhouse chic home design became trendy after the popular modern and traditional design eras, ushering in a more relaxed style with comfortable design elements that carried a level of sophistication. It’s an American classic that evokes a warm and cozy feel.

Typical features of the style include the use of reclaimed wood, plank floors and a few tasteful country accent pieces that retain a level of sophistication.

How do I achieve a farmhouse style in my kitchen?

One of the most popular ways to showcase farmhouse decor in a kitchen is with a deep farmhouse sink. This Moss Building & Design remodel in Great Falls showcases a beautiful sink, gorgeous white kitchen cabinets, wood plank floors, and other rustic decor.

Open-storage shelving, wood plank floors, and other farmhouse design elements like burlap and large glass jars are reminiscent of the farmhouse home design in a kitchen. This Great Falls kitchen remodel features all of these elements as well as a stone accent wall.

Finally, this Oakton kitchen remodel showcases beautiful white cabinets, wood plank flooring, a deep farmhouse sink, and reclaimed wood accents to bring out the farmhouse chic design style.

How do I achieve a farmhouse style in my living room?

Farmhouses of past and present showcase a welcoming front porch, greeting visitors and leading them into the home’s living room. Once in the home, a sliding barn door (as seen below in this Moss Building & Design living room remodel in Great Falls) brings the feel of a country look with sophisticated results.

A farmhouse living room is meant to evoke a feeling of coziness and comfort. It’s typical to find exposed wooden beams, natural wood and stone, and comforting colors including greys, pinks, and neutrals. A stone fireplace and shabby-but-chic furniture complete the living room’s look.

You have no shortage of ways to make your home farmhouse chic. If you combine elements of vintage decor (including old-school kitchen appliances and metallic lighting fixtures throughout your home) with comfortable, cozy, natural colors and rustic decor, your home updates to a sophisticated and charming mecca.

The Best Remodelers in Northern VA

If you’re in the market for home remodeling or if you’d like to talk to a professional about a farmhouse chic home interior, call us at 703.961.7707 or email us at Hello@MossBuildingandDesign.com.  

Sources:

• What Is Farmhouse Style and 10 Ways To Get It
• 45 Comfy Farmhouse Living Room Designs
• Guide To Farmhouse Chic Home Design

The living room is a great place for traditional and modern design elements to merge. Read this blog to discover Moss Building & Design’s five key essentials for transforming your living space into a transitional style living room.

For more information on how to design your ideal traditional or modern living rooms, check out these recent Moss Building & Design blogs, 6 Perfectly Modern Living Room Ideas and How To Create A Traditional Living Room.

Be A Minimalist

The key to a transitional space is choosing your design wisely. With that in mind, keep it simple. One of the prime components of modern design is minimalism, but it’s also a very important element of transitional design style.

Don’t overload your space with furniture and decor. If you choose more traditional elements like ornamentation, wainscotting, or crown moldings, don’t go overboard.

This living space in a basement remodel in Oakton, Virginia, exemplifies a blend of modern and traditional design in a very subdued way. The bar area toward the back features a modern, colorful backsplash with matching bar stools and cool, contemporary recessed lighting. The bar still complements the traditional arches and columns in the rest of the space.

Use Neutral Colors

Neutral colors like cream, taupe, gray, and black, are common in transitional living rooms. Gray, in particular, is a popular color for anything, from living and dining rooms to bedrooms. Explore the many shades of gray available in the Benjamin Moore color palette online here. 

Add A Pop Of Color Statement Art

A pop of color, such as a piece of artwork featuring bright blue, red, or orange colors, brings your room together. It also protects you from having a drab space only full of neutral colors. HGTV suggests using the 60-30-10 color rule when it comes to decorating with color. 

This means that 60 percent of your room’s color is on the walls, 30 percent is in the furniture upholstery, and 10 percent is in a piece of accent furniture, artwork, or floral arrangement.

Choose Furniture Wisely

Transitional home accents have a mix of simple lines and curves. This Reston, Virginia, living room remodel shows how mixing furniture of different shapes works particularly well. All furniture doesn’t necessarily need to match.

The Spruce advises that “a living room eclectically styled would have two different end tables anchoring the sofa with two different lamps. A transitional decor room would probably have matching accessories.”

The living room featured above also has large windows, bringing in natural light, which is a feature transitional design borrows from its modern counterpart. It also shows off a slightly embellished (yet clean, white) fireplace that’s a quick contemporary update to a traditional style.

Contrast Textures And Tones

Use fabrics, such as suede, chenille, or leather, in transitional living room furniture pieces or do a mix of all three!

Don’t be afraid to make a bold flooring choice, either. This living room MOSS remodel in McLean, Virginia, demonstrates a great blend of different textures and tones. See the very modern, leather lounge chair (a similar version of which you can find on Houzz here) paired with hardwood floors and floor-length curtains.

When incorporating traditional elements like trim, crown molding, wainscoting, and floor-length drapes in a transitional living room, balance those elements with modern qualities, such as a neutral color palette, textural variety, and furniture that contains a mix of curves and straight lines. This gives you an ideal living space decorated in the traditional design style!

Design A Transitional Home With Northern Virginia’s Best Contractor

If you’re thinking about redesigning your home, our talented designers know the latest transitional design tips and transform your space. Call us at 703-961-7707, or email us at Hello@MossBuildingandDesign.com to get started. A transitional style living room is one of many options that we can provide you with. 

Transitional design is a blend of traditional and modern home design elements. Often described as “classic with a modern take”, transitional design style took off in the 1950s as a response to the stark modern and mid-century modern styles of the previous era. It continues to maintain popularity today.

Modernism as an architectural home design became popular between the 1940s and 1980s. Rooms designed and built in the modern style reflected smooth, straight lines; had large glass windows; and featured furniture with geometric shapes, patterns, and vibrant colors.

Homes were also built with an open floor plan in mind, and some had recessess or sunken living room areas that were particularly popular at the time.

Since the kitchen is often the most used room in the home, it tends to be one of the first that’s updated or remodeled. Because of this, we start to see how the transformation of modern design style to transitional really took off.

Modern Kitchens Are Bright and Angular

Modern kitchens contain angular islands and cabinets. Many sharp edges exist, including those on cabinet hardware, kitchen chairs, stools, or tables. To add a pop of color that’s typical in modern design, you might see red or yellow kitchen chairs jumping out at the eye against stark white cabinets and countertops.

The picture below illustrates how interior designers often use accent colors and statement artwork to distinguish modernist spaces.    

Amidst the popularity of modern design, which continued through the 80s and into today, some homeowners prefer to take a step back and not fully commit to a modern or traditional design type. Interior designers referred to this style as transitional design.

Transitional Kitchens Blend Modern And Traditional Trends

Transitional kitchens, like the one featured below in Moss Building & Design’s Oakton, Virginia, remodel, use modern ideals, such as the angular look (reflected in the rectangular island and cabinets) and stainless steel appliances, a must-have in most kitchens remodeling projects today.

However, the kitchen isn’t so modern that it jumps from the pages of modern design handbooks. Instead, it has a more subdued modern style that incorporates slight traditional elements. The traditional nods include cabinet detail and a dark base for the center island. This mix creates a great blend of old and new.

Another way that interior designers blend modern and traditional is through furniture. For example, a homeowner can pair a large, modern, and rectangular dining room table with traditional, upholstered chairs.

Transitional Design In Northern Virginia

The transitional design style is one of the most popular in Northern Virginia remodels. Because it’s a blend of two other prominent design styles, home remodelers are given the flexibility to pick and choose elements of each that they like best.

If your love for crown molding pegs you as a traditionalist through-and-through, think again. Pair that with a minimalist living room space that blends sharp-edged and curved furniture, uses neutral colors, and has a pop of color — you’ve got a transitional living space.

Moreover, we receive many requests for Northern Virginia remodels and additions to have large, picture windows in order to highlight scenic views and backyard spaces. Floor-to-ceiling or large glass windows don’t peg you as a strict modernist either. If you’ve got a great backyard and picturesque views, flaunt them.

Design A Transitional Home With Northern Virginia’s Best Contractor

If you’re thinking about remodeling your home, our talented interior designers help transform your space. Call us at 703-961-7707 or email us at Hello@MossBuildingandDesign.com to get started.

Transitional Design Style For Your Northern Virginia Home

Transitional design takes components from traditional and modern design to create a harmonious space. It’s really the best of both worlds!

Transitional interior design is great for homeowners who don’t want the overly embellished look of traditional design or the starkness of modern design.

A transitional home design can be difficult to achieve. The last thing you want is for both design styles to be standing on their own within your space. Contact us for a design consultation, if you want expert advice on creating a cohesive transitional home design.

Before jumping into how to make each room transitional, let’s review some of the hallmark elements of transitional design.

Color Palettes

When designing a transitional room, stick to a neutral color palette. Use beiges, grays, and other neutral colors on the walls to allow other elements and accent colors to take center stage in your space.

Remember, transitional design blends traditional and modern elements, so a consistent color scheme with a pop of color works well for a transitional space.

Minimalism

When blending modern and traditional design, find the sweet spot with enough decorative details, without overdoing it. Stick to the simplistic, clean look of modern interior design. Avoid clutter, but add smaller decorative pieces to incorporate traditional design.

Understated Sophistication

Stephen G. of Interiors by Stephen, describes transitional design as “understated sophistication,” and we couldn’t agree more. Blending two of the most popular design styles into one creates an elegant and beautiful outcome. This design avoids the clutter that comes from overly traditional spaces, yet it includes decorative traditional pieces into a modern space, creating a look that’s clean and elegant.

Now, let’s talk about how to make each room in your home transitional.

Transitional Bathroom Design

When it comes to designing a transitional bathroom, have fun with it! Pick and choose which elements of modern interior design and traditional design that you like the most.

Consider the following transitional interior design ideas for your bathroom remodel:

• Neutral tile
• Freestanding tub
• Neutral color palette
• Incorporate curved and straight lines
• Small amounts of decorative fixtures
• Transitional faucets from Houzz

Be cautious to not favor traditional or modern design elements to avoid creating a space that isn’t transitional at all.

Transitional Kitchen Design

The possibilities are endless when creating a transitional kitchen. Have fun with your design! Transitional interior design adds texture to the space, like this kitchen remodel in Arlington, Virginia, which adds texture through the backsplash.

Consider the following elements to make your kitchen more transitional:

• Hardwood floors
• Neutral colors, including whites and beiges
• Combining natural materials and manufactured ones
• Granite, marble, and limestone countertops
• Simple paneled cabinet doors with sleek hardware

Other Transitional Elements To Consider For Your Home Design

For every traditional element in a room, balance it with one of your favorite modern elements. For example, decorative details in traditional design should be on a small scale. The clean, minimal element of modern design allows for a clutter-free space in transitional interior design, but you can spice it up with enjoyable decorative elements.

To learn more about traditional and modern design, check out our recent blogs to help you blend the two designs into a beautiful transitional space.

The Best Remodelers In Northern VA

If you’re in the market for home remodeling or you’d like to talk to a professional about making your home more transitional, call us at 703-961-7707 or email us at Hello@MossBuildingandDesign.com.

The living room is one of the most versatile rooms of your home. It’s a space that can be formal or casual; feature a large, big-screen TV or a fireplace; function as a family lounge where you relax on the couch or gather for games; or all of the above. Whatever the goal is for your living room, it should reflect your own personal style.

If you’re looking to make your living room more modern, think: Minimalist, clean, and organized without too much furniture or clutter. An open floor plan, neutral color scheme, and abundance of natural light add to modern design flair.

Here are six quick design upgrades that help turn your living room from drab to fab using your favorite modern interior design themes:

Add furniture with pops of color

Bold accents break up the uniformity of a modern, neutral color palette. Brightly colored accent walls and furniture with creative pops of color make a modern living room. These two images from Moss Building & Design remodels show how red, blue, and orange color choices help your living room really stand out.

Mixing geometric shapes is also ideal, such as the living room pictured above, where the sharp straight lines of the carpet contrast with the rounded corners of the living room chairs.

Opt for modern lighting fixtures

Dramatic light fixtures brighten up your modern space. This Oakton living room remodel, done by Moss Building & Design, pivots around the disco ball lighting fixture that serves as the centerpiece. Other modern lighting ideas include drum pendants, curved wall sconces, or pendant light chandeliers.

Use a lot of glass

Floor-to-ceiling windows connect you with nature and make your space look larger, an important concept in modern interior design. In fact, there are entire glass homes built in the modern and contemporary style.

If the idea of a glass house shatters your privacy, stick with a glass wall or oversized windows. Living rooms that bring in the outdoors through double-hung, bay, picture, or awning windows enable you to showcase a lot of natural light.

HGTV has a great overview of eight different types of windows to help you find which suits your needs and style.

Swap ornate furniture with simple, clear pieces

See-through furniture can have the same effect as large windows. Instead of erring toward the large, stately, and clunky traditional furniture, modern furniture emphasizes the function of the piece. It lets you enjoy the room or space instead the furniture itself.

It can also help make a smaller room appear bigger by streamlining your view. There is actually an entire market of clear furniture, such as Overstock nesting end tables, Decoist acrylic trunks, Bellacor coffee tables, and Amazon chairs.

Consider an accent fireplace

If bright color accents aren’t your style, employ a different accent style element, such as an artfully crafted fireplace. This showcases modern design in a less colorful way, but no less bold. In this Arlington remodel, a beautiful built-in fireplace is surrounded by wood shelves for books.

The Spruce, in its article about modern living room design ideas, features a modern living room focal wall with a bold fireplace accent. Instead of a typical fireplace and mantle setup, this wall is completely built of metal panels that give it a more mechanical, modern look.

Go with neutral wall colors

Aside from accents, stick with neutral colors like cream, gray, brown, and white. Gray walls with black, leather furniture bring out a particularly modern, masculine look. 

Design A Modern Home With Northern Virginia’s Best Contractor

If you’re thinking about redesigning your home, our talented designers can help transform your space. Call us at 703-961-7707, or email us at Hello@MossBuildingandDesign.com to get started.

Modern design appeals to many people. It’s known for its straight, clean lines and simple decor. There are many modern design elements that you can use to achieve a modern design style in your bedroom. As your expert Northern Virginia remodeler, we’ve designed many modern homes and can share tips to help you create a modern home design.

Less Is More

When it comes to designing a modern bedroom, it’s important to remember that less is more. Modern interior design is very simple and minimalistic.

The furniture you pick should be very sleek and simple. Detailed woodwork and decorative details shouldn’t be used in modern interior design. When choosing a bed, consider a platform bed like this one from Houzz. It’s simple yet stylish and will certainly help achieve a modern home design.

Incorporate Wood Into Design Accents

Another modern design element is incorporating wood into the design. This platform bed from Houzz is another great option. It’s functional and adds a touch of wood to the space.  

If done correctly, a shiplap wall is another great option to achieve a modern look in your bedroom. Take it a step further and paint the shiplap white or another neutral color to make the room even more modern.

Let There Be (Natural) Light

The best light is natural light. Oftentimes, you’ll see modern bedrooms with tall windows and no curtains or window treatments. Skylights are another great addition. Modern home design has a clean feeling, and letting natural light flow freely through the room creates that clean, open feeling in your bedroom.

Neutral With A Pop Of Color

Consider a neutral color for the walls, bedding, and floor. Consider a bold pop of color that’s consistent throughout the space, because using the same bold color in accent pillows and other decorative pieces ties everything together and maintains consistency.

In this remodel in McLean, notice the neutral color used on the bedding and walls, as well as the bold red that’s used in the lamps and chairs. Again, being cautious about avoiding too much color, this room successfully adds that pop and maintains a very clean, modern look.

Creating Straight, Clean Lines

You’ve heard that modern interior design incorporates straight, clean lines, but what exactly does that mean? Honestly, exactly what it says.

From the use of decorative accents to the furniture, each element provides an opportunity to create straight, clean lines. House Tipster has a gallery of modern bedrooms, where you should notice that each one incorporates straight lines through the bedding, flooring, or the dressers.

Simple Decorative Elements

When choosing decorations, stick to the ‘less is more’ concept. There’s no need to get too crazy when trying to achieve a modern look.

Take the painting that’s hung in the remodel in McLean. It’s very simple and adds the right amount of color to tie the room together. When achieving a modern look, it’s all about the room as a whole as opposed to independent pieces.

White, fresh flowers are often used to decorate a modern room, as well as accent pillows. HGTV has a great gallery of modern interior design bedrooms for more inspiration.

Minimal Clutter

Last but certainly not least, you can’t have a modern bedroom with clutter. Out with the old and in with the clean space!

Nightstands should be free of clutter with a simple table lamp or small vase with flowers. Your dresser should be cleared and have one or two decoratives pieces, if any at all.

Lastly, don’t overdo it with wall decor. One simple painting should suffice in a modern bedroom and tie in the accent color you chose.

Remodeling With Northern Virginia’s Best Contractor

Whether you’re in the market for a traditional or modern home or you’re unsure of your specific design style, we can help! Email us at Hello@MossBuildingandDesign.com, or call us at 703-961-7707 to talk about your project. We can’t wait to hear from you.

Clean. Minimalist. Abstract. Simple.

These four words are often used to describe modern design and the whole modernist movement that inspired the design style. If you’re a curious design history junkie, read on to learn more about how the modern style adapted over the past few decades.

How Modern Design Began

Modernism is a philosophical movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, categorized by abstract thinking that deviated from realism, romanticism, and renaissance beliefs in previous eras. Modernism in art and architecture, in particular, was popular during the 1940s to 1980s.

During this era, homes designed in the modern style consisted of smooth, straight lines; open floor plans; large glass windows; geometrics shapes and patterns; man-made materials; and natural elements that showed an integration with the outdoors. 

As described by AnOtherMagazine, modernism “was rooted in notions of functionality, elegance, and simplicity as championed by the likes of the Bauhaus and Le Corbusier, whose dictum [was] ‘a house is a machine for living.'” 

This idea of the machine house or “form follows function” are very important concepts to modern home design, as they emphasize the space’s practical and functional nature  rather than its aesthetic or ornate elements.

In that case, the purpose of the building, home, or room should dictate the design. This mechanical ideal is also reflected in modern interior design styles through the use of materials like metals, glass, vinyl, and plywood.

When someone discusses modern style, you’ll also hear the sub-genres of modernism, used to describe the movements inspiring furniture, art, and architectural styles of the time, such as the following:

• Futurism
• Bauhaus
• Neo-Dada
• Cubism
• Minimalism
• Abstract Impressionism

Mid-Century Modern Home Design

When speaking specifically about modern home design and decor, you’ll often hear the aesthetic referred to as a “mid-century modern design style”. This phrase describes interior design, furniture, graphic design, architecture, and urban development from 1933 to 1965.

In this mid-century modern kitchen in McLean, Virginia, for example, you’ll see modern style reflected in straight lines and sharp angles of the cabinets and bar stools. Other characteristics of the mid-century modern style include the following:

• Little to no decorative elements or embellishments
• Furniture in geometric patterns
• Bold accent colors with art or counterpiece piece
• Flat panel cabinets
• Floor-to-ceiling windows

Author Cara Greenberg coined the phrase “mid-century modern” in her 1984 book Midcentury Modern: Furniture of the 1950s. However, the birth of the architectural movement really took off after the second World War. 

“The birth of midcentury modern was after the war,” said Sian Winship, president of the Southern California Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians, according to an article on HGTV.com.

“The houses had open floor plans and giant sliding-glass doors, which encouraged people to go outside and be healthy. In a traditional home, the window height is 4 to 5 feet, and you can’t see out as a child. With these walls of glass, children became engaged and open-minded because the environment stimulated the senses in a different way.”

Modern interior design hit a resurgence at the turn of the 21st century. In 1999, the Library of Congress opened an exhibit on Charles and Ray Eames, two of the foremost modernist designers.

This, and other exhibits, was followed by the debut of the television phenomenon Mad Men in 2007. The show inspired a new generation to find appeal in modernist styles at work and home. In many workplaces, you’re likely to see Mad Men icons like the Eames Lounge Chair and Knoll Barcelona Chair.

Modern Home Design In Virginia Homes

Modern home designs flourish in Northern Virginia. This remodel in Oakton, Virginia, for example, shows a lovely modern designed living room. The floating, angled staircase with metal railings and spherical light fixture draw the eye, while the large glass windows allow plenty of natural light and provide a view to the beautiful backyard. Many of our customers look to us to help bring to life their bold modern design vision. Let us know if you’d like to speak to a designer to make your dream a reality.  

The Best Remodelers In Northern Virginia

If you’re in the market for home or basement remodeling or you’d like to talk to a professional about a modern home interior, call us at 703.961.7707 or email us at Hello@MossBuildingandDesign.com.