How to Decorate Your Home With a Rustic Decor Theme
The first thing you need to look at when thinking about decorating your home in a rustic style is what “rustic decor” actually means to you. For most, it brings visions of country farmhouses and log cabins. The only problem is, most of our homes do not have exposed wooden beams. Therefore, we have to change our ideas of rustic decor to suit the architectural style of your existing home.
There are various time periods and themes to choose from when working with rustic decor. For example, you could select a country, colonial or Victorian theme based upon your preferences.
Country or Colonial rustic decor is based on a very practical style. Items are not only practical but useful as well. Decorations and themes are clean and simple. A colonial or country themed room can be decorated using items like earthenware pottery, “folk art” paintings or handmade tablecloths and quilts. If you want to go to extremes with your rustic decor you might be inclined to add such conversation pieces as a pair of antlers or a stuffed moose head.
The Victorian style rustic decor is not as simple and is often more romantic. You can decorate your room with ruffled curtains, bedding and tableclothes or add some wicker baskets for effect. When choosing a Victorian style rustic decor think along the lines of those gorgeous hand embroidered covers for your bed or delicate flower patterns for your curtains in your kitchen.
The big advantage you have with using a rustic decor theme for your project is the fact that you do as little or as much decorating as you like. You can make the whole room or the entire house rustic themed, or you can place a few perfect accent pieces around a room to bring a rustic feel to it or your entire home.
You might choose to use a few functional, yet rustic pieces, to recreate a certain period in history. There are many old fashioned past times that are getting popular again. These types of things can easily be integrated into your rustic decor theme. Good examples of this would be an old fashioned table top sewing machine, spinning wheel or butter churns. If you don’t want to go to such extremes, try a pretty wicker basket in the room that you can keep your sewing or knitting needs in.
Make sure to include lots of natural materials when decorating. These can be decorative, such as sprays of twigs arranged in a vase or a beautiful dried flower centerpiece for your table. Or they can be functional such as pretty wicker baskets or nice wooden blinds for your windows. The natural materials you use gives the impression that you are bringing the beauty of the indoors into your house. Many decorators and interior designers on television programs are using the rustic decor and achieving a wonderful effect. You might want to see what they come up and copy some of their ideas. Whatever you decide to do, remember that using a rustic decor is so simple that you don’t have to be one of those decorators or interior designers in order to make your home beautiful.
The basic key to using rustic decor is to use what works for you. Don’t decide to not purchase an item you like simply because you feel it doesn’t really count as traditional rustic. Weave it into your overall design for the desired effect. After all, there are no rules set in stone for achieving a rustic theme. So stop and think about what you want to achieve, what you need to get in order to reach your goal, purchase the items, place them around your house and enjoy the results. Most of all, have fun!
