St. Charles Staging Pulls Together Eclectic Decor

Naperville Stager takes on St. Charles Hollywood Whimsy Style houseYou can tell this going to be a cheerful house. The exterior is reminiscent of Storybook style, or as it’s often known Hollywood Whimsy, where the curved, steep gables evoke a Hansel and Gretel feel. Usually these houses are mostly Tudor but with a couple of idiosyncratic, fun other elements. When we were invited to stage the home for sale, we were delighted to find all the best bits of Tudor architecture, with arches and molding, wainscoting and half columns, combined with 21st modern lighting, fixtures and fittings.  To appease the purist who might want authentic, full-on Tudor and appeal to the widest possible market segment we styled with Eclectic Decor.
St Charles Stager

Eclectic Decor is all the rage at the moment, thanks to websites like Houzz.  Home-owners get to pick all of their favorite snippets and then take the wad of ideas to their architect and builder to combine it into one structure.  Some architects and builders find that this new specificity makes it easier to pick everything all at once, up front, and then the build goes more smoothly. Room by room is then exactly to the owners’ taste. However, from a selling viewpoint, the more specific a home gets to one taste in any one direction or another, it can make a property harder to sell. The wider the appeal of a home, the greater the pool of likely buyers.

With brick and stone exterior with detailed siding accents, this Tudor home in St Charles combines old world details with contemporary convenience. Deep wainscoting in the formal rooms – the living room, above and the dining room below, calls for unusually narrow artwork, and a difficult decision about the height of the table lamps: above, below or in line with the ledge?

dINING rOOM Collage

We opted for below, for a neater, more contained look.

Kitchen Collage

Look at how fun lively way, eclecticism plays out in the kitchen!  Traditional cabinetry with turned balusters contrasts with the contemporary stainless steel pendant lighting; notice the very contemporary horizontal tile with mosaic accents for the back-splash. The island is 10′ long, which made for a smaller, more intimate breakfast area.  Those on the go can grab a mug at the island; those reading the newspaper, or gazing out at the changing seasons unveiling in the garden can do so in peace.

Ecelectic Style in St Charles, IL

We have mixed styles and textures, but kept our colors all in a single palette. This unifies the home, making it flow elegantly. By combining dark woods and lighter woods, organic elements with soft furnishings, we achieved an eclectic decor that fits any era.

The best of all worlds, this St. Charles house would offer any number of families a great home.

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