In past posts you’ve read about primitive country decor colors, and I shared my favorite primitive paint colors with you.

Now let’s talk about actually getting down to painting - interior walls as well as those rustic furniture pieces you may pick up at yard sales and second hand shops this summer.

Truly, summer is one of the best times to paint. You can keep the air moving and fresh if you’re painting indoors, and your paint also dries quicker. Painting tops the list for many decorators as it gives your room a lift in short order.

If you’ve never painted a wall or a stick of furniture yourself I urge you to give it a try. Yes, you can hire experts, but I think you’ll find it incredibly rewarding to perform this task yourself. First of all, you’re going to use muscles that you may not use very often - so it’s good exercise. Secondly, it’s mentally therapeutic - when involved in the simple task of painting you give your mind creative rest. Giving interior walls or a side table a fresh coat of paint is definately within your abilities.

Here’s a few of my favorite painting tips for the country home decorator…

Wall Prep

Good wall preparation is one of the most important aspects to a professionally finished paint job. Start by repairing any cracks or chips on walls or corners, then sand and smooth out those rough edges!

Thoroughly clean any areas, such as around door handles or light switches, that are dirty. Greasy fingerprints and other dirt splotches will leak through even a few coats of latex paint and are much harder to cover up than to clean before you start to paint.

Gather all your painting supplies in the room you’ll be working before you start. This includes rags and warm soapy water for any mishaps.

Shopping for painting supplies:

Depending on your painting task you may need all or some of the following:

• paint (one gallon per 300 to 400 square feet of wall space),
• drop cloths (to protect floors and furniture),
• paint brushes,
• painter’s tape (cover window trim and baseboards with a low-tack painter’s tape),
• rollers and paint tray liners,
• paint thinner (if you’re painting with oil paint),
• and rags.

Spring is officially here and summer is hot on it’s tail!

It’s time, my friend, to turn your attention to the yard, and nothing is hotter on the garden scene than dressing that patch of lawn of yours up in country decor!

There’s just so much you can do in your garden to make it ‘country’ - even if you’re in the city! You could add or rearrange your perennial bed to include English Country or Country Cottage garden plants.

English Country Garden Decor

Flowers: Climbing roses, flowering wisteria, and lots of lavender (although the lavender leans heavily into French Country gardening). phlox, lupins and forget-me-nots are a few others. Fragrant peony bushes and rhododendrons are other popular favorites, and are now available in a multitude of colors and sizes.

Statues: Anything that looks antique such as cherubs, fountains or gargoyles.

Country Cottage Garden Decor

Flowers: Hollyhocks, daisies, black eyed susans and delphineums are adored in the country cottage garden. Sweet peas in every color imaginable, even blue! Any flowering vine like clematis, with smaller, top soil growing perennials such as ‘pinks’ and perhaps a summer planting of annual poppies. A small herb bed by the kitchen door is another staple - fresh basil, oregano, tarragon and sage should be at the doorstep of any country cottage!

Statues: Garden decor for the country cottage is generally whimsical. Rabbits, frogs, and bird statues. But country decor is also functional - bird baths and fountains are very popular, as are beautiful glass butterfly feeders.

Spend a few minutes here looking for ideas. There are entire sections on Country Garden decor, country garden faucets, thermometers and more. Just use the categories listed at right to help you sort through all the content here, or use the search function if you’re looking for something specific.

Until next time, have fun dreaming up new ways to decorate country!

Spring is officially here, and that means that opportunities abound for those of us who like to take older, worn-out pieces of furniture and turn them into primitive country decor accents.

Spring cleaning, and the yard sales that result from it, bring ample opportunities to the prim country decorator. Don’t limit your eye for finding usable pieces to yard sales though - second hand and thrift shops are also great places to find inexpensive items that you can re-purpose.

Primitive country decorating is versatile. It can be a make-do approach to redesigning a room. It can be a mix of vintage pieces with modern. And in the garden it can be a means to display discarded architectural artifacts among the brightest of flowers.

Primitive Country Decorating Ideas for the Garden

A friend of mine had an interesting display in her garden of a collection of old bird cages (the kind that you would normally keep indoors). She hung them from trees in her garden, atop old posts, and directly in the garden bed. These looked really charming with lobelia-laden pots inside the old cages, moonflowers and trumpet vines growing up the posts, and after a year of weathering in the elements, moss growing on the rooftops. It was a true country garden with some really unique accents!

Primitive Country Decor - Inside

For interior country decor, keep your eyes open for great deals on used dressers and side tables. If they are structurally sound they both look great with a coat of paint. If you’re into a real aged look, you can simply sand off any paint flakes and add a coat or two of varnish to smooth out the surface (this gives you the vintage look without the hassle of dust and dirt collecting in all the nooks and crannies of older pieces).

Finally, you might try your hand at some simple stencilling designs. Yes, I do know that stencilled art is passe, but it was very popular ‘back in the day’. So, if you’re looking for some vintage pieces for primitive decor, and you want to make a table or dresser appear authentic, then lightly stencil some of the classic designs on the item, then sand it off in the standard ‘wear’ spots. If you color match it to your other pieces it will look great!