How does an open floor plan balance formal entertaining with everyday functionality? This transitional home interior transformation showcases a couple’s collaboration with a Decorilla designer to create a seamless flow with statement lighting and coordinated finishes. Read on for creative details and material cohesion that bring elegance and practicality together.
The Challenge: Transitional Home Interior Design & Decor
The client approached Decorilla for creative interior design across the main living areas of her 3,300-square-foot single-level new house. She wanted a transitional home interior with glamorous touches, emphasizing warm tones and statement lighting. The designer worked across multiple connected spaces in the main living area, addressing everything from coffered ceiling details to dog-friendly flooring and a hidden door integration. Among others, the challenges included:
- Coffered ceiling kitchen design with cabinetry reaching ceiling height
- Honey bronze hardware, marble island top/backsplash, and black aluminum glass doors
- TV wall with marble surround and linear gas/electric fireplace in the living room
- Solution for displaying wedding photos in an elegant, integrated manner
- The hidden door leading to the primary bedroom coordinated with the layout
- Complete furniture selection with an upscale appearance
- Decorative dog crate for two bulldogs with hidden shoe storage integrated in the hallway design
- Glass railing system with wall lighting or art installation along the staircase descent
Pro Tip: Not sure if a transitional home interior is right for you? Try our Free Interior Design Style Quiz to discover your ideal style today!
Design Inspiration: Glam Transitional Interior Decor
The client saved many transitional home interior images where glamorous room ideas, such as statement lighting, commanded attention overhead. Drum pendants with layered metal bands cast a warm glow while geometric crystal chandeliers hung in tiered arrangements. They also collected examples showing trey ceiling and wood beams crossing ceiling planes. These combinations suggested a way to introduce organic warmth into formal-looking spaces where entertaining could happen regularly.
Moreover, the client responded to various built-in cabinetry and how these installations solved storage needs while creating visual interest across entire wall sections. The consistent thread involved neutral color chemes and metallic accents that subtly punctuated them. Functionality also appealed as much as the aesthetic: these rooms organized multiple activities across square footage while maintaining sightlines and material continuity.
Initial Concepts: Finding the Right Designer
The Decorilla team connected the client with two seasoned designers whose portfolios demonstrated expertise in transitional home design: Casey H. and Erika F.
Casey’s overall scheme leaned into deeper neutrals with black accents across multiple surfaces. Her moodboard introduced dramatic contrast through charcoal built-ins flanking a linear fireplace, while the kitchen featured glass-front upper cabinets and open shelving in darker tones. Erika’s proposal worked within a lighter material range. Her vision for this home’s transitional design style centered on a neutral palette, accent lighting, and vertical fluted details. Open shelving reduced cabinet mass, while honey bronze hardware unified the spaces.
The client selected Erika‘s concept. Among several feedback to proposed variations, one clearly communicated their trust in this designer: “I’m okay with either. Surprise me 😀.”
Glam Transitional Home Interior Design Series
This transitional home interior came together through a phased approach, with the design team tackling one zone at a time. From the primary bedroom suite to shared living areas and private workspaces, each phase was built on the established material palette and design language. Follow the journey through the remaining spaces:
- Before & After: Glam Transitional Home – Primary Bedroom Retreat (Coming Soon!)
- Before & After: Glam Transitional Home – Spare Bedroom Designs (Coming Soon!)
- Before & After: Glam Transitional Home – Work and Wellness Spaces (Coming Soon!)
Results Revealed: Transitional Home Interior
The transitional interior decor in the open-plan living area emerges through material choices that balance contemporary and traditional references. Paneled walls with applied molding recall classical detailing. At the same time, the linear fireplace and geometric furniture forms register as modern elements. Gold finishes on lighting and accent tables carry the honey-bronze hardware palette from the shared living areas into other rooms of the house. White oak flooring also maintains visual continuity, as well as the cream and taupe range the client wanted throughout their transitional home interior.
- Combined Living & Dining
- Transitional Design Style Kitchen
- Well-Organized Pantry
- Staircase and Hallway
- Transitional Interior Decor for a Mudroom
- Front Door & Main Entry
Combined Living & Dining
The open-plan living room in contemporary transitional design combines white paneled walls with warm wood built-ins and a tray ceiling detailed with perimeter lighting. The taupe sectional addresses the client’s concern about white upholstery with dogs while maintaining the neutral palette she specified. A two-tier gold chandelier occupies the ceiling center, delivering the statement lighting emphasized in the brief. The TV wall integrates a linear fireplace beneath the screen, flanked by elegant walnut shelving.
A round black coffee table anchors the conversation area. The seating is organized in a “U” configuration with a chaise extension. Two large table lamps with organic pottery bases flank the setup from a black console table positioned behind the sofa. Gold side tables in geometric forms punctuate this arrangement.
The dining room sits in the back of the open floor plan. Its tray ceiling recesses upward with wood slat installation across the raised plane, lit from above to cast striped shadow patterns. A modern chandelier with linear gold branches suspends at the center, its geometric form echoing the rectilinear ceiling detail.
The black dining table seats eight. Its substantial rectangular form is grounded by a dark striped area rug. Six sculptural chairs upholstered in taupe surround the table, juxtaposing the other two in darker charcoal fabric at head and foot positions. A sideboard in front of the window completes the setup. Its fluted face matches the texture vocabulary used on the living room console, maintaining material continuity across the open space.
Our Picks for the Look
Transforming Challenges into Creative Solutions
The client’s brief mentioned wanting to display wedding photos but expressed uncertainty about placement and presentation. Erika addressed this by designing a gallery wall on the living room wall adjacent to the seating area. Organizing multiple frames in a grid arrangement made it read as a curated, intentional composition. The uniform spacing and alignment create visual order across the wall plane, allowing the wedding images to function as both personal documentation and a decorative element within the room.
Transitional Design Style Kitchen
Kitchen design addresses the client’s directive to eliminate excessive cabinetry through strategic use of glass-front sections and open display. Marble countertops and backsplash share the same veining pattern, creating a continuous surface flow. Gold hardware unifies cabinet pulls, faucet, and pendant fixtures across the space.
White perimeter cabinetry uses Shaker-style panel doors with gold pulls that match the honey bronze finish the client specified. Glass-front upper cabinets line sections of the perimeter walls, reducing visual weight from solid cabinet doors.
The walnut island provides substantial storage and prep surface and seating for five, its wood tone matching the coffered ceiling insets overhead. It also features recessed panel detailing with gold bar pulls on drawers.
Five glass pendant lights suspend above the island in a linear arrangement. The pendants hang at varying heights from a horizontal brass rail, creating staggered illumination across the island’s length.
Our Picks for the Look
Well-Organized Pantry
The pantry organizes bulk storage across three walls in a walk-in configuration. Open shelving lines two walls, while glass-front upper cabinets occupy the back wall above a marble prep counter. The system uses narrow horizontal strips of LED mounted at the front edge of each shelf, washing light across jar labels and contents. This retail-inspired display makes inventory visible at a glance, eliminating the need to open cabinet doors during meal prep or grocery planning.
The marble-topped counter also functions as a secondary prep zone for tasks like decanting bulk purchases or assembling lunch items. Lower drawer units in taupe finish, meanwhile, provide closed storage. Gold bar pulls match the hardware used throughout the kitchen, while the backsplash matches the kitchen’s marble selection, maintaining material consistency between spaces.
Our Picks for the Look
Staircase & Hallway in a Transitional Home Interior
The stairwell descends to the basement level through layers of paneled wall treatment. Applied molding covers the stair wall in dense rectangular frames that extend from floor to ceiling height. This addresses the client’s concern about making the staircase visually interesting. Wood treads meet white risers on the stairs themselves. The treatment creates dimensional shadow lines that shift as natural light moves throughout the day.
The main hallway of this transitional home interior uses applied molding to create grid patterns across white walls. Rectangular frames stack vertically in repeated modules, continuing the narrative from other rooms.
Wall sconces punctuate the hallway at regular intervals with their black matte bases. They match the windows and the black-framed glass door that marks the office entry. The patterned runner in black and cream tones grounds the circulation path.
Transitional Interior Decor for a Mudroom
The other hallway connects the transitional home interior with the entrance from the garage, simultaneously acting as a mudroom. It holds a gallery arrangement of artwork in gold frames across the longest wall. White oak flooring runs the length of the hallway, continuing the material used in the main living spaces. White paneled walls provide contrast to the walnut cabinetry.
This space consolidates all common entry functions—seating, coat storage, and shoe organization—into one efficient wall system that maintains clean floor circulation through the narrow space. A built-in bench occupies the center section, its cream upholstered cushion providing seating for removing shoes. The bench base contains concealed closed storage. In addition, cabinet doors are fitted with black bar pulls that match the hardware used on other cabinetry throughout the home.
Vertical slat details punctuate lower cabinet sections on one side, allowing ventilation while maintaining visual rhythm across the wood expanse. Three pendant lights suspend overhead to ensure even illumination and emphasize symmetry at the same time.
Hidden shoe storage sits behind cabinet doors that open to reveal LED-lit shelving. Tall cabinet sections flanking this area provide substantial hanging space for jackets and coats, fulfilling the client’s directive for large closet areas.
Front Door & Main Entry
The main transitional home entry interior reveals another tray ceiling detailed with LED perimeter lighting. A modern chandelier in gold finish hangs at the center, this time with geometric arms extending outward to hold candle-style bulbs. White paneled walls continue the classical detailing used throughout the home’s circulation spaces. Black-framed art hangs in a vertical stack. A console table in woven natural fiber sits against one wall, topped with ceramic vessels and dried branches. The herringbone wood flooring directs movement from the entry toward the open living areas visible beyond.
The front door reads as a solid panel in matte black, flanked by sidelights and topped with a transom window. Black frames divide the glass into gridded sections. A gold bar pull extends vertically down the door face, mimicked by the long, sleek outdoor sconces.
The entry surround uses vertical wood slats in walnut that climb from the porch floor to the gable peak, creating textured depth against white horizontal siding. It establishes the material vocabulary carried through the rest of the transitional home interior.
Our Picks for the Look
Design Details: Sourcing the Perfect Pieces
Decorilla’s 3D renderings gave the client a clear preview of the scale and how materials would interact across the open floor plan. The visualization stage allowed confident decision-making on major purchases, while exclusive trade pricing through Decorilla reduced costs on furniture and transitional home decor. This released a larger part of the budget for the quality finishes the client desired.
Erika refined the design through multiple revision rounds as the client’s preferences evolved. Each adjustment brought the final solution closer to the glamorous transitional aesthetic described in their original brief. The client’s response confirmed the successful collaboration: “Thank you so much for everything, you exceeded my expectations in every way! Forever grateful for you 😀.”
Looking for transitional home interior design with glam flair?
Decorilla’s professionals can create a similarly stunning transformation in your home. Book your Free Online Interior Design Consultation to get started today!
Comments