Congratulations! If you are reading this article then you more than likely already have purchased a cabin. You probably have terrific views of the forest, mountains, lakes or streams. The beauty of your property and the surrounding environment probably compels you to spend much of your time outdoors, surrounded in the peace and tranquility of nature. Alas, you will have to venture indoors every now and then, and if the weather turns nasty then you will be spending a lot of time inside your cabin. Once indoors you still want to feel the tranquility and connectedness to nature that you felt while enjoying the outdoors, so what you do with your interior is very important.
You do not want suburban or urban influences impinging on your rural retreat so you must be careful how you decorate your cabin. Everybody knows that paint can be the easiest and most cost effective way of changing the look of a room. When you are decorating a cabin, you want to make sure that you are using colors found in your natural surroundings. This does not mean dull or neutral, it means natural. Repeating the colors found in nature will help your house flow between indoors and outdoors, as if your cabin is part of nature itself. Visit your local overstock store (TJ Maxx, Homegoods, Marshalls) for excellent buys on throw pillows which in the vibrant colors of red, burnt orange, and golden yellow, will add a lot of interest and pizzaz to a room. What else can you do with paint besides paint your walls and ceilings? Here is an easy and small project for you to try. Find a piece of old, wooden furniture that you feel may not be appropriate for your cabin. It can be a mirror frame, dresser, or headboard. To easily transform this piece of furniture into a charming rustic accent piece, follow these steps:
1. Select 2 complementary paint colors (in matte finish), one for a bottom coat which will show in places, and one for a top coat which will be the primary color. Also buy one small can of glaze.
2. Sand the selected piece of furniture to remove any old finish.
3. Apply the bottom coat of paint and let it dry.
4. Mix the top coat with the glaze. Three parts paint to one part glaze. Apply mix over the dried bottom coat.
5. Once it is dry, take the sandpaper and sand the top coat off in selected areas so that the bottom coat shows through. Get creative! This is your work of art. You have now distressed a piece of furniture and made it perfectly rustic!
Now it is time to take a walk in the woods. Take a basket and gather pine-cones, twigs, moss, and anything else you might find that is interesting. Using a glue gun, you can apply your new found treasures to many things around your house to add instant personality and rustic appeal. For instance, using a hot glue gun, apply moss, bark and pine-cones to the frame of an otherwise boring mirror to instantly transform it into a visually interesting focal point. Here is another trick; take some twigs and paint them to match your dining room chandelier. If your chandelier is black then paint them black, if it is rust then paint them with a rust paint. Speckled spray paint can be bought at any home improvement store and even at Wal-Mart. Take some short lengths of small diameter, rough rope and paint them also. Once dry, use the rope to tie the twigs onto the arms of the chandelier and it now looks as if the chandelier was custom made. Lighting companies use iron to fashion twigs and rope for their chandeliers and they can be expensive. Here we have taken items that we found outside our homes and made them look like they were fashioned as part of the chandelier for very little money.
Using textural elements is important when decorating your cabin. Stone, wood and iron all play very important roles in bringing nature indoors. Search for old metal pieces at flea markets and garage sales. Usually they can be refinished or even used as is but in a manner they were not intended for. Use an old garden gate for a headboard or even wall art. Use beautiful stones as a base for an occasional table or as bookends. The possibilities are endless, and with a little creativity and and a little bit of work you can do amazing things with your cabin without spending a fortune.
