Times may change our tastes in home design and many people now want contemporary elements in their home décor. However, sometimes, nothing can beat the comfortable, warm and relaxing feel of rustic, primitive home design.
To get that primitive, rustic feel in your home, you don’t have to buy a lot of antiques and collectibles. The following are very useful tips for creating a primitive style home.
Flooring
Start with your floor. Choose hardwood like walnut or anything that’s dull and non-shiny. Reclaimed hardwood will also do. If you prefer something other than hardwood, cover your floor with a carpet instead. Choose a neutral color and coarse texture, such as Berber. Steer clear of plush carpeting as this is actually the opposite of the primitive concept.
Add a hint of softness by throwing in hand-hooked, braided rugs all over the hardwood or carpet. The goal of creating a primitive home design is to get that “lived-in” ambiance, so add shabby looking rugs from secondhand stores.
Walls
Primitive decor is kind of gray, as you might say. Paint your living room with specialized milk paint, and use colors like sage green, buttermilk, light cream, mustard yellow, colonial blue, or slate gray. If you want to create an accent trim, use coordinating shades of milk paint, such as black, tavern green, barn red of Federal blue. Milk paint is available in a lot of home improvement stores as well as online shops.
Pieces of Furniture
When it comes to furniture, simple and functional is the way to go. You can also use items like wooden chests and old crates as coffee tables, and antique benches can be end tables. For cabinets, use cabinetry with a dull, distressed finish, such as highboys that have double doors, antique pie safes, and hutches that have open shelves.
You don’t need to get rid of your chairs and sofas and replace them. Instead, cover them with slipcovers made of homespun checks and blue or pink ticking fabric. If you really want new furniture pieces, many antique shops and furniture maker offer primitive designs.
Although primitive inspired home decor means setting up worn looking items, don’t display anything too shabby and dilapidated.
Lighting Fixtures
Lighting fixtures can both give a comfortable ambiance, provide more visual aesthetics. Consider lamps, chandeliers and candelabras that come with tin accents and a distressed paint. Online stores, antique shops and even department stores have such lighting fixtures.
Accents and Accessories
Your window treatments shouldn’t be the flowery, fussy kind. For decorations, you can use cafe curtains, side panels and valances, and examples of good materials are homespun cotton and lightweight burlap. If you’re going to use side panels, choose twine as the tie-back.
Your living room can have extra softness if you place antique quilts over the backs of your deacon-style benches or chairs. Also, put primitive pillows on the sides of sofas and chairs. Use quilted pillows and homespun cottons. Another tip is to pile quilts or flour sack linens on pie safes and hutch shelving.
The tools for your fireplace can be replaced with antique wrought iron items. Hang an antique fireplace bellows close to the hearth, and display cast iron antique and oil lamps on the mantel.