Treillage – What Is It? And Why Your Home Needs It!

Hi Guys,

Well, I think I’ve now read all of your excellent comments regarding my garden post. So many great ideas! Thank you so much!

Of course, I definitely need to get someone in here to help me. This year will be very simple as I continue my plans to renovate some of the other spaces in my home.

 

Before we jump into treillage, I want to share something I’ve maintained for decades.

 

If possible, I do believe it’s better to live in a home for a bit before renovating it.

The reason is that as you live in the space, there may be things at the beginning you thought must change. But, as time is spent living in the home, you may realize that the expense of making those changes isn’t justified. However, other situations crop up that do need fixing. I don’t think one needs to wait an entire year, but three or four months is certainly helpful.

 

Okay – TREILLAGE.

 

First of all, how do you pronounce it?

I know. So silly. There are TWO Ls, and there’s no hint of either of them in the pronunciation.

TRAY YAHJ

Never mind, I adore French. Words always sound so much more sophisticated than in English.

 

What is treillage?

 

It translates in English to TRELLIS or LATTICE.

However, there’s another word for trellis en Francais (in French) that is treillis. (TRAYEE)

 

Treillage - Bunny Williams and John Rosselli

And then, some of you may remember the lovely shop owned by Bunny Williams and John Rosselli in New York City named Treillage. Sadly, it closed a few years ago. Above is a shot of the store shortly before it closed.

 

Treillage or latticework has been around for centuries. Originally, it was meant to go primarily in the garden as decoration and to hold up vines and trellises.

 

And, like a lot of classical design motifs, it had a heyday during the 18th century. It began with Louis XIV and peaked with Louis XV with the building of the Pavillon Frais on the gardens of the Petit Trianon, part of Versailles.

 

via Wikimedia-Pavillon_frais,_Petit_Trianon,_Versailles

Pavillon Frais via Wikimedia

 

via tricoetel.com-Versailles-Theatredeau

Above are the surrounding gardens and theatre as they were in the 18th century. Boy, the French really knew how to live back then! Well, that is, until some folks decided to revolt.

More artwork of another part of the garden.

 

detail - le pavillon frais - Versailles

Detail of the Pavillon Frais via Tricotel

 

The Pavillon underwent a massive renovation in 2010. The venerable company Tricotel did the work.

Today, there’s a sister company in the US (California) called Accents of France.

 

These two companies provide both standard and custom designs of the most beautiful latticework designs.

 

The sky’s pretty literally the limit, as you’ll soon see. In addition, they manufacture planters and other garden items. Many of their designs for exteriors are available in aluminum. That makes a lot of sense since wooden lattice is somewhat fragile over time.

Both websites have tons of gorgeous images. And, Accents of France also has a beautiful Instagram account.

 

I think that lattice has always been appreciated by many. It’s that old-money country club look.

 

Not that one needs to be wealthy. It’s only my perception.

However, since the renovation of the Pavillon Frais, latticework has become more wildly popular than ever. I see it pretty much everywhere, both inside and outside of homes.

So, today, I’m going to share some gorgeous examples of treillage.

 

All are outside except for the first one.

 

 

Bronxville Sunroom - latticework

Photo by me :]

This example is a room I did back in 2013. The latticework was already there. Everything else is new, except for the sconces. Yes, this client loved a lot of bright color.

 

Okay, it’s time to go outside to see several examples of treillage in residential applications.

 

via @thedevotedclassicist instagram - spectacular garage door with lattice design

via @thedevotedclassicist on Instagram

 

Fabulous architectural detailing on this home in San Francisco. But, would you believe THAT is the garage door? That has to be the prettiest garage I’ve ever seen. It does bug me a bit that the doors aren’t lining up. Let’s blame it on the constantly shifting earth in San Fran. ;]

 

The remaining images are either from the Tricotel website or from the website or Instagram of Accents of France.

 

Tricotel amazing treillage architecture

Via Tricotel  This is a dramatic treillage architectural feature on this building.

 

Accents of France Treillage - teal against brick wall

Accents of France Treillage – teal against a red brick wall. Is that a mirror behind the treillage?

It must be. How cool is that! And look at those trees in those giant planters!

 

AccentsofFrance - instagram - garden design trompe l'oeil treillage

Accents of France – Instagram – I think this trompe l’oeil design in treillage is pretty awesome.

It adds so much visual interest to the poolscape.

 

accents of France custom treillage city gardenAccents of France custom treillage city garden. This one you must check out the before and after.

This looks a lot like Boston, but it might be New York City.

 

Tricotel - white lattice poolhouseJaw-dropping, this is! I know. Who cleans it? Let’s try not to worry about such things.  :]

 

AccentsofFrance - treillage - red brick

This is probably from the same house. I believe that’s another mirror. Crazy!

 

AccentsofFrance - lattice wall - garden

Accents of France – lattice wall with a lovely container garden

 

Tricotel garden treillage huge wall

Tricotel garden treillage that soars up to the sky. I love the pale green.

 

tricotel.com - custom treillage

tricotel.com – custom treillage

Such an interesting design.

 

entrellis.co.uk - Treillage - garden

This one too.

 

AccentsofFrance custom treillage gate

Accents of France custom treillage gate.

Not this one, but I would love a new gate with some of these designs incorporated.

 

I hope you found some inspiring examples of treillage.

 

I know I did. I’d love to do a combination of a treillage wall, planters, and maybe including some bench seating, as well.

Of course, I could keep going and add a pergola which would mean an extension over the existing wall. Naturally, I’ll need to have written permission to make a change like that.

I was curious about the price point of Accents of France. And, I found some of the planters for sale at The Well Appointed House.

 

For instance, this planter retails for about $1,000 (20″ planter) to $6,000 for a large 39″ planter. That’s a little steep for me. I imagine to do custom walls in my little garden would be prohibitively expensive. However, I do appreciate all of the great ideas!

You might also enjoy reading about green and white rooms.

Thanks again for all of the great ideas for my garden!

xo,

 

PS: Please check out the newly updated HOT SALES!

The Mother’s Day gift guide is here.

 

41 Responses

  1. Lovely post! I was just looking as a home that added the simple version of lattice to inpsire my daughter and Ii for her new small Cape Code style home backyard. Thanks for sharing

  2. I have loved that look since I saw a photo of a room like in Franch that when I was a kid, and I have been lucky to tour a number of palaces with lattice-like rooms and frescoes, and gardens with loads of treillage.

    I was also lucky to live a short distance away from one of the most beautiful palace gardens in Germany at Schwetzingen Palace, located between Heidelberg and the Rhine River, and an annual pass was very reasonable. It is a mix of classic French and English garden design with a lot of follies, huge arching trellis and a cool optical illusion called “The end of the world” –photos don’t do it justice. Some call it mini Versailles, and definitely worth checking out, especially when the cherry blossoms are in bloom in early April.

    There used to be quite a lot in the United States in the gardens of the wealthy and you still see it in some neoclassical and Colonial Revival homes filling in spaces between columns on porches, usually with a little window or unusual configurations that play on the geometry of simple lattice. But with age, these embellishments tend to perish and not get replaced.

    If you want to buy pre-made quality wood lattice panels, Woodway makes them in a couple of patterns in Fir, Cedar and Redwood.

  3. What a pretty post! I love your 2013 room with the treillaged walls. I would imagine it would be a lot of work to maintain treillage, especially inside. How would you keep it clean from dust and dirt? I love anything that brings the outdoors inside. The house with the grey roof that is completely trellised in white is just gorgeous.

  4. You have a picture on Pinterest of a white bathroom with black ring drop drawer pulls. Can you tell me where I can purchase those ring drawer pulls?

  5. Whatever way one pronounces it ‘trellis’ is my favorite theme. I’ve got it going in a small way via rugs in my home right now.

    This is a post I will not forget. You can get this effect with a fast growing vine and tightly attached wire on which to train the vine. Just talking saving dollars here.

    I also very much like espadrille.

  6. Hah, it’s so funny that this subject has come up now! We’re having a new fence put in next week and I wanted a trellis design element at the gates. Sadly, our fence company wasn’t willing or able to do the trellis gates I had in mind (they can do part of the design but not the whole thing). I’m glad that folks shared the Walpole Outdoors suggestion because it looks like they might have what I’m looking for.

  7. Good morning Laurel,
    Grace Mitchell from A Storied Style on HGTV designed a space using lattice work on the walls. Yes, it was lovely. But all I could think of was how much of a pain it would be to keep it clean & dusted. I’m sure it would be easier to keep maintained using it outside. You could just hose it down.
    Have a great day!

  8. Correction, it looks like they no longer have the Walpole location. Too bad, it was a showplace! !

    Here are the new locations . The one in Reading doesn’t compare to the old flagship. I haven’t been to the others. But they will come to you as well. https://walpoleoutdoors.com/about/our-locations

    Walpole can recreate those planters or you can add your own finials and feet to some other $300 planter…

  9. If you get sticker shock, put it on hold and try again next year. Wood prices are through the roof right now. I was recently quoted 3k for a 16 foot long fence with an arbor 😂😳. Two years ago this would have been half that or less.

    I second Walpole Woodworkers if you want to do something like this. You will see their products ubiquitously in the fancier suburbs. The flagship store is in Walpole. They have occasional sales that end when they say they’re gonna end.

  10. I meant to comment on your earlier post regarding your garden, but didn’t. Have you considered a belgium fence? They do require maintenance, but not as much as a trelles and are more organic. I think one would look very nice in your garden area and might be a fun way to dabble in gardening.

    1. Hi Traci,

      I did a search for all links for Walpole and could not find one. Someone did put in a walpole___ dot com but it wasn’t an actual link, so no harm. This is one reason why I moderate all links you guys put in, before they get published. Thank you for sharing. It looks beautiful!

  11. Walpole Outdoor is another wonderful source. I purchased white painted cedar planters with lattice behind them. Between the planters, I have a water fountain. These are still holding up 20 years since purchasing them. Their headquarters are in Massachusetts.

  12. They say that you learn something every day, and it is certainly so when you visit Laurel’s blog. Who would have thought that treillage came from good old Louis XIV?? But it just makes perfect sense since he was a great patron of arts, culture and all things beautiful. Also, thank you for the music of Mozart (the film is one of my favorites as he showcases his music in such a wonderful way). I’ve not read the comments for your patio, but I’d repave it with fresh new pavers, remove the flower beds, have beautiful pots and go crazy on boxwood. Thank you for educating us and widening our cultural horizons and for spreading beauty in a world that seem to have less and less of it these days!

  13. LOL, yes the cleaning! What about stenciled trellis? Would love to see a post on stencils and the dos and don’ts of using them.

  14. Thank you for the wise reminder “it’s better to live in a home for a bit before renovating it.”

    I recall a designer who suggested being patient to let the house tell you what it wants.

  15. Trellis outdoors is pretty and high maintenance. Since your bedroom is off the patio I’d install it inside. See if you can paint your walls a color you could paint a trellis pattern on it for instance. Accents of France is so expensive that’s why we never considered it for our courtyard. Home Depot carried trellis panels we painted them that dark Charleston green mounted on our brick walls. Looked terrific for a tenth the price.

  16. I do think that the teal trellis in the city backyard next to the brick with the mirrored backing is Miles Redd’s backyard – or was. I remember reading about treillage in domino and his yard some years back..

  17. I love the interior lattice, but yes, who is going to clean it. I agree, live in a place for a while to see how you live in it and what it requires. Then take a while to perfect it with all the what-nots. I’m always adding and subtracting. As far as the lithograph is concerned, is “Where’s Waldo” in it somewhere? Enjoy your day everyone.

  18. Look at Brattleworks in Gardner, Ma. I’ve purchased trellis from them and they have the best dark green cofor for lattice or trellis. You also can design whatever you want.

  19. Anne Harvey,
    I suspect that people who can afford this type of ornate landscaping can also afford landscapers to clean and maintain it. That is most definitely not the case for me!

  20. Hi Laurel. I love a beautiful trellis, but seeing some of those pix, the first thing I thought about was the difficulty in keeping the trellis work clean. LOL.

    Seriously, your comment about living with a space before renovating is spot on. I also think it makes sense to extend that to outside. Living in NC, we have horrendous pollen, and my yard slopes down toward the back, which puts my screened in porch up high in the trees. That means I get to clean pollen out of the porch floor and wicker furniture, and it’s not pretty. A ground-level garden should not accumulate so much pollen or be so hard to keep clean, but if you go with lattice, maybe get something that stands up to power washing.

    Love love love the turquoise lattice with the brickwork. I’m sure whatever you end up with will be gorgeous. Have fun!

  21. Had to laugh at “Let’s try not to worry about such things,” as thoughts of maintenance and cleaning were admittedly distracting me from all the beauty! Especially the ones with mirrors. For the planters, I think I have seen some similar ones at Frontgate for MUCH less….happy garden dreaming!

  22. So you’re telling me that we should NOT have taken down the white, vinyl lattice that a previous homeowner put up as the basement “ceiling”? (The answer is no, you are not telling me that. It was horrid, and a HUGE pain to remove.) The timing still made me laugh since we just finished getting rid of it last weekend.

  23. Haha, yes GL, it’s “tray-yee”
    As Professor Higgins said, “the French don’t care what they do actually, as long as they pronounce it properly.”

  24. Love the different designs and colours used. And I am particularly partial to trellis used for fences around gardens, so that passers-by can get a hint of the colours within. On a side note, in the picture of your design from 2013 (the yellow trellised room), where is that gorgeous jute(?) rug from??

  25. I love the room for the client who loves bright colors! This is one of my favorite posts! I have a brick wall that could use a trellis. I have always wanted to encapsulate my back yard into a secrete garden. Many wonderful ideas here!

  26. OMG, Laurel! Thank you so much for this post. When we built our home here in NH 3 years ago, we had an issue with a spot of wetlands in the back which forced us to put our septic system in the front of the house. Therefore, we have a big pit in the front of the house with cement walls. We have commercial-sized planters with evergreens sitting atop the septic covers but the cement walls have been a tick in my side from the beginning. This treillage blog has finally given me the idea of what to do with those ugly cement walls! Yep, and I can grow English Ivy on the trellises too! Keep blogging, girlfriend! I read each and every one of them!

  27. I never paid much attention to this concept before, but at first I thought the gardens were the Pitti Palace gardens in Florence. We didn’t have time to explore them, but enjoyed them through the windows of the “house!

  28. lovely lovely, I always wanted to have some latticework in my sun room but keeping it clean was what stopped me. it is 3 walls of sliders and the wall on the driveway is not “scenic:” those sliders would benefit from it, on the inside. I was more concerned with keeping it clean and dust free than maintenance since it was inside so opted for plantings outside. the beautiful designs of treillage soften the hard city gardens beautifully. Thanks for the photos, more to dream about.

  29. Oops, mind your French, Laurel: en français (no capital letter, get that cedilla in there) it’s treillis = TRAY-YEE. However, it’s a great idea for your space, and adds enough interest to make winter less of a problem. It needs to be very solidly fixed to take the weight of even a climbing rose, if you wanted one — if you do, I recommend the smallish Ghislaine de Féligonde, repeat-flowering apricot fading to cream, and semi-evergreen, and can take neglect which is what it often gets here.
    I too love these oversize containers, but they’re very expensive once you get to the bigger size. Small ones look too dinky, and you can’t put in anything bigger than summer bedding. Box requires a minimum of 40x40cm and does better in a bigger space, of course. No matter what a manufacturer says, there isn’t a terracotta planter on earth which can withstand minus 15C°, I’ve tried Ravel here and they inevitably crack; moving a big one full of soil plus a plant is a major operation requiring strong men in the plural. Subject to what’e permitted, could you add a low brick wall to the front of your bigger bed to raise it and get a greater depth of soil? That would enable you to have bigger plants against one wall at least.

  30. After staying up much too late surfing the web for trellis inspiration, I looked at the time and thought “I’ll check Laurel’s blog to see if she has posted yet” – and I couldn’t believe my eyes. I thought I might have fallen asleep and was dreaming. Thank you for sharing!

  31. Thank you for all the beautiful photos and tips, Laurel. I was going to respond with garden ideas but there were already so many. You are wise to employ someone to help you who knows the ins and outs of what can and can’t be done, historically speaking. There may be rules against attaching anything structural to the brick wall and the door– which I personally like the organic feel of (as someone else mentioned)–may also be verboten; otherwise somebody would have stained or painted it already. Love the treillage idea, the velvet boxwoods, climbing hydrangea, and I so hope you can fit an exquisite Japanese maple in one corner of your garden. Whatever you do, it will be beautiful!

    1. Hi Jane,

      The one tall wall is actually the church next door. But after about 20 feet or so, the wall is set in, so that part is clearly belonging to the church. The other two walls were added, not sure when, but sometime after 1979. However, I believe more recent than that. The door IS falling apart and is difficult to lock because of that and things shifting. I believe that changes are allowed, they just need to be in keeping with the style of the building in form and color and approved by the planning board. In addition, the garden faces the alley which has less stringent rules than the fronts of the buildings, as that is where the giant fugly trash cans are stored, as well. Nothing charming about them.

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Hi, I’m Laurel, and Laurel Home is the website and blog for Laurel Bern Interiors.
I’ve been creating new-traditional interiors since 1988. The blog is where I share all.

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