DIY Primitive Country Decorating

If you’d decided to take your decor up a notch and move into primitive country decorating, it’s time to start thinking about wall colors, fabrics, display pieces and art.

Oh yes, and lighting! Lighting for primitive country decor is my absolute favorite, as I’m sure you can tell by looking around this site…

Today though, I’m in the mood for color chat.

You know one of the things that’s the most fun about primitive country decor is that you get artistic license when you decorate this way. You get to play outside of the rule book, match colors that prissy designers would never go for, and period styling is completely ignored as well.

It’s all about you. Your tastes, your needs, your talent (and developing that talent).

Primitive Decor Color Schemes

When the trend first arrived, this style of decorating leaned heavily on a subdued country decor. Country is such an eclectic mix - it could be checks, it could be florals, it could be brights, it could be beige. But prim country was all about aging. The colors were muted, or if once bright, sun washed from years of exposure.

Those decorator colors were re-established in the marketplace by finding vintage pieces and replicating the hues. Fashionable colors from the 1920s to 1950s, they added a level of nostalgia to every wall or stick of furniture that was painted in them. But it didn’t stop with the application of paint! New pieces, new wall treatments, were given that vintage look with sanding, staining, burning or a good thrashing with a metal chain.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let me show you colors that are the staples of primitive country decor before we talk about the aging process or even the rest of a room’s decoration and treatment.

This is really hard to do on a computer monitor. Your computer screen will display these colors differently than mine does. Furthermore on a monitor you’ve got light shining through the colors. On a wall there is no lighting from behind. Only use the color palette I’m showing here as a starting point to thinking about your walls. Your next best step would be to head into any paint store and ask them to show you a range of what they would consider primitive country color.

Remember, we’re talking about your home. Don’t choose a color on a paint mixer’s preference. The paint mixer at the decorating store will not be spending hours, days, months regretting the color choice. Choose a color that sits right, looks right, in your eyes.

You’re looking at a deep rich barn red. On the walls this is not so bright as on your computer screen. Next is a sandy taupe, followed by a weathered board color (this is how the old brown washed out to the sun after 10 years), the yellow likely looks too bright to be a primitive color, but in a flat finish it is both sunny and unique when painted as the primary room color. The green here is dark, almost muddly looking, again much different as an accent color on a flat surface. Next the beige that once was white and a muted blue that once was navy.

There is a lighter blue used back then that I’ve forgotten here, but I’ll explain it. It’s quite similar to a Cape Cod gray tone - if you’ve ever been to the Cape you’ll recognize the color that was often painted on lighthouses but years of sunshine and salt spray really dulled it down considerably.

Just remember, this is your theme, your living space. Any primitive country color can be lightened, or darkened to suit your taste.