| As new home design
has turned to extensive usage of wide open spaces, interior
columns have become a significant architectural tool. Open
floor plans often incorporate kitchens and eating areas with
dens. Architects will often provide breaks in these expanses
by using interior columns incorporated with a slight change
in elevation. A variation on this concept is a divider between
kitchen and den area that has interior columns spaced across
the open area above the divider.
Columns are also often used to help define a dining area
that is part of a living room. The use of interior columns
with furnishings such as sideboards or opaque folding screens
between them can frame off an area around the dining table
without creating a separate room. These columns can also
provide a load bearing function where necessary, serving
a practical as well as a decorative purpose. Today's architect
has a choice of interior columns manufactured from a remarkable
assortment of materials.
• Classic architectural wood columns are not exposed
to weathering problems in an interior setting.
• Fiberglass interior columns are available in both
load-bearing and decorative models
• Some firms are manufacturing columns today from
a polyurethane-marble composite.
• The capitals, or tops of interior columns may be
plaster or may be a plastic-fiberglass composite, depending
on whether they are load bearing or not.
• Ornamental columns are available in a plaster-fiberglass
composite.
• Some column manufacturers work with a material known
as "pre-cast stone."
The selection of manufacturing material has as much to do
with the texture, or look that the homeowner is seeking as
it does with the load-bearing issue. Some people are comfortable
with columns that utilize the simple, classic lines of a
Doric design and are manufactured of fiberglass or some other
artificial composite. For some individuals, the duplication
of old-fashioned column materials is important. These people
are more likely to opt for a wooden column, a hardened plaster
material or some sort of composite that incorporates marble
or stone to provide a textured, traditional look.
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