Arts and Crafts style?

[Thistledew]

If someone said that they were decorating their house in a 'modernised arts and crafts' style, what would you think they meant?

I'm asking, partly to settle a debate, and partly for inspiration! Does it speak to you of a particular style or is it more of a philosophy?

It’s both a style and a philosophy really, but I suppose you could take the philosophy part and just furnish using the work of current craftspeople.

I think of William Morris and particularly his Red House. Lots of pattern, including on tiles, fireplaces, ceiling etc.

It’s both a style and a philosophy. But when people take about Arts and Crafts furniture , they mean from the specific time when the philosophy was flourishing.

I would think lots of natural materials rap wood and pewter. Furniture that is not particularly delicate or embellished but has a certain beauty in its functionality all the same. William Morris soft furnishings - rugs, curtains, cushions. Maybe some pre-Raphaelite prints.

Esp wood, not rap wood.

Natural colours.
Lime washed walls
Soft natural and colourful textiles
Wooden (natural) simple frames for paintings.
Simple quite rough matting carpet.
Wooden floorboards. Often painted Matt subdued colour.
Art - paintings - on walls.
Not minimalist - cozy. Books.
Nothing shiny.
No glass/metal furniture.
Low lighting.
Understated generally.
Homely.

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Arts and Crafts is a very particular style and it isn't modern. It's pretty much the opposite of modernism - which celebrates the industrial, mass produced, the streamlined - while A&C venerated the handmade, harking back to the pre-industrial, in a medieval revivalist manner, during an age of industry and mass production.

In some ways A&C shows a hipsterish obtuseness about making everything as difficult, handmade and expensive as possible. It's better than that - far better designed and more functional, less painfully idiosyncratic - but it is a way of showing off wealth by owning cripplingly expensive hand-crafted, well-designed plain things, rather than affordable luxury.

Whereas these days, A&C wooden furniture is very affordable. Handmade tapestries instead of 'nod to the impoverished middle classes' William Morris wallpaper, not so much. Neither the wallpaper.

I might think that a person could be referring to the famous WM quote' have nothing in your home that is not useful or beautiful'. Basically 'does it spark joy?', a Victorian Marie Kondo.

But that could mean anything at all, design-wise.

So I'd think handmade tiles, old oak furniture and a lot of nature influences.