Southwestern Native Interior Design! The Bold & Colourful Look Inspired by our Own American Desert!!

by Paul,"The Wise Gardener"

Your "Wise Gardener" has always been smitten by Southwest Interior Design.  Maybe it's because Southwest Design is one of only three NATIVE American interior styles, the other two being Early American, and Shaker.  Or maybe it's the fact that it so accurately conveys the "feeling" one gets when one sees a desert sunset, with all its radiance.  This experience quickly "burns" the senses with unforgettable colour!

Every high-noon object, now splashed with the sun's waning glow, takes on a richness of colouration that is indescribable.  The purples and oranges painted upon the mountains, the golden hues superimposed upon the cacti and agaves; the wispy cirrus clouds, no longer white, but peach, orchid, then violet; and the clear, clear sky:  first aqua, then turquoise, and finally molten orange, as the sun's last rays kiss the dimming lit sky with a gift of rainbow-hued pastels!

My personal desert "love affair"began in the 80's, when I had the distinct privilege to explore Tucson, Arizona one spring, (and in many subsequent pilgrimages)!  I have never fallen out of love for the Sonoran Desert, with all its colours, mountains, its blazing sunlight, and its flora. It was not long afterward, that I desired to bring some of the desert---indoors!  I have been a Southwest Interiors advocate, and practitioner ever since!

Please follow this pictorial journey, as seen through my eyes, and translated by me, into "the Look!, which incorporates desert-inspired interior design into my Florida (very Eastern locale) home, and how this design works so exceedingly well, in my opinion! 

The question I had was a "vexing" one; what do I do with all the furniture, rugs, and accessories, I had already acquired over the years?  I needed to integrate all these items (which were truly cherished), into my new scheme, which had become a "passion"!

The solution, I reasoned, was to find some sort of commonality!  Could it be MORE accessories; could it be colour, could it be re-arrangement?   As it turned out, it was a combination of ALL THE ABOVE elements!  As you can see, my worries were basically, unfounded.  Desert Design is really what you want it to be!!

My new furniture acquisitions, in lighter coloured stains, indeed, worked quite well, with my cherry and mahogany wood stains.  What was necessary was to utilise accents that "tied it" all together!  The results are pleasing and harmonious, and overall, hint of the Southwest Desert! 

Afterall, any style that is too predictable, and too much the same, looks amateurish AND probably, boring!  Colour of fabrics, desert plants, and native pottery artifacts were the "ribbons" that unified the "look"!   Anyone can achieve these same goals, if one uses imagination, trial and error, and a "designing eye"!  I hope, garden friends & desert-style lovers, that you, too find this primer on Southwestern American indigenous Desert Design helpful, in your planning efforts!  You might surprise yourself, in just HOW creative you can become! 

Remember: THERE'S A LITTLE INTERIOR DESIGNER IN ALL
OF US, FRIENDS!

Paul, The Wise Gardener!

Visit Paul's site at TheWiseGardener.com. 
Paul is a tropical plant specialist with a special love for palms & cacti.  He is an horticulturist and gardening lecturer living in Florida.