1910s interiors: Arts & Crafts calm, Omega colour and a decade of war

The 1910s began in Edwardian ease and ended in a housing crisis. In between came a short burst of bright, painted design in Bloomsbury, the last castle built in England, and a war that stopped almost all house building. This guide looks at what shaped the 1910s home, its colours and details, four real rooms and buildings to learn from, and how to bring the decade into a room today. It follows our 1900s interiors guide and leads into the 1920s.

From Edwardian calm to wartime

The decade opened with the lighter Edwardian home. Compared with Victorian rooms, interiors were brighter and plainer. Walls could be painted white because the air was less sooty, and electric light was reaching more households. Neo-Georgian details such as multi-paned sash windows came back. In the Museum of the Home's recreated 1915 drawing room, electric lamps light a room in the Arts & Crafts style, where furnishings were meant to be simple and honest. Our Edwardian interiors guide covers the earlier years in detail.

The First World War changed everything from 1914. House building almost stopped, as workers enlisted and money and materials went to the war. Skilled brickmakers and bricklayers were scarce. In 1915 a new law stopped most rents rising above their August 1914 level. The government did build some housing for munitions workers: at Well Hall in south-east London, 1,298 homes went up in about six months.

When the war ended, David Lloyd George called an election on 12 November 1918 and promised homes fit for the heroes who had won the war. The 1918 Tudor Walters Report set new standards, including a bath in every house, and favoured low-density garden suburbs. The Housing Act of 1919, known as the Addison Act, made councils build homes for working people. It aimed for 500,000 homes, but funding was cut in 1921 and about 213,000 were completed under it.

The 1910s palette

The base of a 1910s room was pale. White or cream ceilings and friezes sat above soft, light walls, a clear break from darker Victorian schemes. Joinery was usually solid wood, and fireplaces were often set with glazed tiles, as in the museum room below.

The real colour came from the artists. The Tate describes the Omega Workshops' designs as using "bright colours and bold, simplified forms". At Charleston, Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant painted walls, doors and furniture to sit with their own paintings. Treat the palette in two layers: a calm ground, then a few strong, hand-painted notes.

Movements and makers

Arts & Crafts, still. The ideas of William Morris and his followers still shaped ordinary homes: honest materials, oak furniture, simple forms and good craftsmanship. If you want the roots, read our guides to William Morris and Arts & Crafts and to Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the Glasgow Style.

The Omega Workshops (1913 to 1919). Roger Fry opened the Omega Workshops in July 1913 at 33 Fitzroy Square in London, with Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant as fellow directors. The aim was to bring modern art into everyday design. Omega made furniture, printed textiles, pottery, rugs, murals and painted decoration. Pieces were unsigned and carried only the Greek letter omega. It was never a commercial success and closed in 1919, but English Heritage notes that its influence on domestic design has lasted.

Charleston. In October 1916 Bell moved to Charleston, a farmhouse in Sussex, with her children, Grant and David Garnett. Farm work gave Grant and Garnett exemption from military service. The house had no electricity or central heating, and they painted the walls, fireplaces, door panels and furniture, and used Omega fabrics and ceramics alongside their own painting.

Vienna. Abroad, the boldest houses were Viennese. Josef Hoffmann, a co-founder of the Vienna Secession, designed the Palais Stoclet in Brussels between 1905 and 1911. Artists of the Wiener Werkstätte decorated it, and Gustav Klimt's work is part of the interior. UNESCO describes its geometric design as a turning point that anticipated Art Deco and Modernism.

Lutyens and Castle Drogo. At home, Edwin Lutyens began Castle Drogo in Devon for the grocery magnate Julius Drewe in 1911. The war slowed the work as men left to fight, and building stopped completely in January 1917. Later that year Drewe's eldest son, Adrian, was killed in action. The family moved in for Christmas 1926 and the house was finished in 1930.

The details that define a 1910s room

• Ceiling. Plain and pale, often with a deep white frieze between the picture rail and the cornice.
• Walls. Light and plain, as in the museum room below, after the darker Victorian schemes.
• Lighting. Electric pendants and wall lights, often with glass tulip shades. In the castle kitchen at Drogo, Lutyens designed a round table to echo the circular lantern above it.
• Fireplace. Oak surrounds with shelves or small cupboards above, and glazed tiles around the grate.
• Furniture. Solid oak in the Arts & Crafts manner, or, in artistic homes, painted pieces in the Omega spirit.
• Windows and air. Sash windows and French windows, valued for letting in sunlight and fresh air.

Real 1910s rooms, annotated

Here are four real places, from a museum front room to a Brussels mansion. Each photograph is numbered with the features worth noticing. The colour swatches are sampled from each photograph, so treat them as a guide rather than a paint match.

1. The suburban living room

A recreated 1910 living room at the Geffrye Museum in east London, now the Museum of the Home, photographed in 2008. It shows the middle-class front room of the decade: light walls, a solid oak fireplace and electric light.

1. Electric pendant with glass tulip shades
2. Deep white frieze and plain ceiling
3. Matching electric wall light
4. Soft green-grey walls
5. Oak overmantel with small leaded cupboards
6. Green glazed tiles around a brass hood
7. Display cabinet with leaded glass doors
8. High-backed wing armchair

Colours in this photo:
Green-grey wall #8E9794Carpet #6B5128Green tile #2C5028Oak mantel #543221

Take from it: Keep the ceiling and frieze pale, put the colour on the walls, and let one well-made fireplace be the centre of the room.

2. The Omega room

Omega Workshops furniture shown at a Bloomsbury exhibition in Roubaix, France, in 2009 and 2010. The walls and floor belong to the exhibition, but the painted pieces show how far Omega moved away from polished wood.

1. Wardrobe painted with large, simplified flowers
2. Flowers rising from painted pots
3. Mottled black and yellow border
4. Low chest painted with a bowl of fruit
5. Round table top painted with a petal pattern
6. Small framed painting

Colours in this photo:
Flower red #933A26Leaf green #2A4F34Panel blue-grey #6B7682Petal pink #AB856E

Take from it: Omega treated furniture as a surface for painting. One painted piece is enough to bring that energy into a plain room.

3. The country house in granite

A room at Castle Drogo in Devon, which the photographer calls the lounge. Building began in 1911 and Historic England describes the house as built entirely of granite.

1. Bare granite walls
2. Stone fireplace with a broad moulded hood
3. Timber ceiling with close-set joists
4. Iron ring light with candle-style bulbs
5. Tall mullioned window with leaded panes
6. Heavy red curtains
7. Loose-covered wing armchair
8. Roll-top bureau

Colours in this photo:
Granite #675C3FCurtain red #A14239Chair green #698485

Take from it: Lutyens let the material do the decorating. Plain walls and a strong ceiling can carry a room without pattern.

4. Vienna in Brussels: the Palais Stoclet

The tower of the Palais Stoclet in Brussels, designed by Josef Hoffmann and built between 1905 and 1911. It is the one international house here, and its interiors are private, but the outside shows the Viennese language clearly.

1. Stepped tower built up in flat planes
2. Sculpted figures crowning the tower
3. Dark metal bands outlining each edge
4. Flat, pale stone cladding
5. Tall strip of finely gridded windows
6. Railing with circular motifs
7. Small corner turret

Colours in this photo:
Stone cladding #576665Bronze patina #4A6A63

Take from it: Outline flat surfaces with a thin dark line and repeat a simple square or circle. It is the Viennese trick, and it still works in a hallway.

How to get the 1910s look

• Start pale overhead. Paint the ceiling and frieze the same soft white, and keep the walls light. Our guide to ceiling colour ideas has more options.
• Centre the light. A plain or lightly patterned ceiling rose, for example the Ring Ceiling Rose, under a simple pendant is right for the period. Check proportions with our guide to choosing a ceiling rose size.
• Add wall lights in pairs. Electric wall lights sit beside the pendant in the museum room above; a pair either side of a fireplace or mirror suits the period. See our history of the wall sconce.
• Choose one painted piece. A painted chest, screen or table brings in the Omega and Charleston mood without taking over the room.
• Use honest materials. Solid wood, plaster, glazed tile and linen suit the decade far better than gloss and chrome.

Lights down: the home front, 1915 to 1917

The war changed how people used light at home. Lighting restrictions were introduced in 1915, after German Zeppelins began raids over East Anglia and London. They were not a full blackout of the Second World War kind: lights were dimmed or shielded, and only when an attack was thought imminent. Local police chiefs could issue orders under section 7A of the Defence of the Realm Act 1914.

• 19 January 1915. Zeppelins bombed Great Yarmouth and King's Lynn, killing four civilians.
• 31 May 1915. The first London raid, killing seven people.
• 13 and 14 October 1915. Five Zeppelins killed 71 Londoners.
• Spring 1917. German use of Zeppelins largely ended.

Enforcement reached ordinary people. In 1916 a man in Melbourn, Cambridgeshire, was fined 15 shillings for failing to shade lights at the village gas works. For most households the light came from gas, so a shade or a curtain was a practical matter before it was a decorative one.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Going too Victorian. Dark walls, heavy drapes and crowded surfaces belong to an earlier generation.
• Jumping to Art Deco. Chrome, mirror glass and sunbursts belong to the Art Deco years that followed.
• Painting everything. Charleston is a whole artwork. In most homes, one or two painted surfaces are plenty.
• Losing the fireplace. An original tiled surround is often the most important feature of the room. Repair it rather than replace it.

Shop the look

A few pieces from our range that suit this look, each designed and hand-cast in Shrewsbury.

Windsor Ceiling RoseRing Ceiling RoseLinear Wall LightLily Leaf Wall Light

Bringing the 1910s home with plaster

A simple ceiling rose such as our Windsor Ceiling Rose above a pendant, or a pair of plaster wall lights such as our Linear Wall Light beside the fireplace, picks up the pale, well-made calm of the 1910s room, and both take paint well if you want an Omega colour. Our guide to painting a plaster ceiling rose explains how, and our Botanical & Art Nouveau pieces suit the more decorative end of the decade. Every piece in our Heritage Classical collection is designed and hand-cast in Shrewsbury, and arrives as natural plaster ready to leave raw or paint to suit your room.