Find Your Style: Traditional vs. Contemporary

What’s all throughout your home and one of the biggest draws to your guests' eyes? Your windows! This means that while you might not think about the day in and day out, they have a heavy influence on the overall style of your home.

If you’re looking to replace your windows, you may need to assess what style of home you currently have, and if you’re looking to renovate or redecorate any time soon, what style of home you’re aiming to have. Two of the major, and most different styles, are contemporary and traditional.

Curious which you lean more towards? Learn more about what these styles look like and what décor, windows, and features tend to lend themselves to which style.

A contemporary home in structure tends to have open floor plans, simple walls, and a slight boxy feel to it. But the structure isn’t everything, homeowners can also decorate their homes in a way that reflects a more contemporary style as well.

In terms of décor, the contemporary style tends to lead with the age-old adage of “less is more”. This means clean and simple lines, lack of clutter or busyness, and primarily muted tones and colors with a rare pop of color. You’ll also often find the artwork in contemporary homes to be very line-dependent. Meaning lots of strong lines in paintings, sculptures, and décor.

In addition to the clean style of lines and décor, this also means minimal rugs, window coverings, and patterns. Any patterns that are in the home tend to be highly geometric with lots of strong lines, like the décor and artwork.

Our Pella Reserve Contemporary style focuses on sleek sightlines and expansive glass to match the contemporary style homeowners, contractors, and architects working on a contemporary home love. To complete the look in full, the hardware for our Pella Reserve Contemporary window has a minimalist finish and a smooth, unobtrusive, foldaway crank for operating the window.

With traditional style in terms of structure, you tend to see a lot more detail in moldings and architecture, and you also tend to see more rounded lines and curves. Instead of clean, straight, and simple lines, you’ll see a bit more dimension and flare.

In terms of décor with traditional style, you’ll see a lot more patterns and detail. Lots of color, detailed artwork, and decorative knick-knacks out on surfaces such as coffee tables, end tables, and ottomans.

In addition to more detailed and colored art and décor, you’ll also find that furniture tends to look a bit more comfortable. Sofas and chairs will be more full, soft, and rounded, and you’ll find softer textures on décor and furniture as well. You’ll also see more window curtains and adornments, often patterned with flowers and other designs.

Our Architect Series Traditional Style window focuses on the detail, the sash and grilles are finely detailed to match perfectly with the traditional style. In addition, our specialty wood windows work perfectly for interior wood finishes that are a staple for traditionally styled homes.