What Makes a Country-Decorated Home Country?

What Makes a Country-Decorated Home Country?

Some houses seem to call out for modern furniture and accessories, others want a more casual look, still others want formal elegance. So, how do you achieve a country look? I think a lot of it is personal, what country is to you. A home does not have to be "perfectly" decorated in one theme or another; it's really about making that house into a comfortable home for the persons that live there.

You might chose one or two objects per room to help achieve the look you're going after. A really antique kitchen table, a dry sink or a cabinet for your kitchen perhaps. I found a "pasta" table in my cousin's home the last time I visited there? Apparently my grandparents had it in their garage - I would simply love to have it but there's no room in my kitchen. It's almost like a desk, with big bins for flour, sugar, tiny bins for spices, little drawers for utensils, and on top, a big flat surface for rolling out the dough and cutting it. It's all in a dark wood. I have not idea what it's really called but I'm sure years ago my grandparents made their ravioli dough on it. In the right kitchen it would be wonderful. I would have to give up my island so it's not worth doing the remodeling since this is a fairly new home. But, maybe someday…

Collections help to make that home yours. Collect something you love and display somewhere in your home. My friends Pat and Harry collect a certain pattern of crockery and display it on top of massive antique cabinets and inside the glass-fronted shelves also. They look wonderful. I have several items my grandparents used when they made raviolis. The wooden ravioli roller, similar to a rolling pin, is displayed high up in my kitchen on a long shelf along with a wood cheese grater (like a wood box with drawer with the metal grater on top). And, on my kitchen counter I have a new "bashed up to look old" ravioli mold, grandma's ravioli cutter and another round ravioli cutter that makes individual raviolis. I'm always on the lookout for something else that will go along with these items.

Owning antiques is wonderful but it might not always be affordable or practical. Years ago, when an aunt in Italy died, my mother, aunt and grandmother went over to bring much of her furniture and accessories back home. (Lalle Nina had no family in Italy.) Unfortunately, I was fresh out of colleges, living in an apartment with no room for a square dining room table or seven and eight foot armoires. I do have some lovely hand blown glasses and other items however. My aunt took some lovely wood chairs but there weren't enough of them to do much with them; when she took them for restoration and repair, they suggested she have more made. I'm not sure how many are "new" but made to look just like the original antique chairs but she now has eight or ten of them. None of us can tell which are the newer ones and which came from my aunt's estate.

An old, wood mantelpiece could be the focal point of a family room or living room. Years ago, we borrowed a beautifully carved wood mantel to use in a Christmas shop I was involved with. We got so many comments on it - we could have sold it many time over! It would be magnificent in the proper setting in front of a fireplace. The parents of my friend Jim had used it that way in the home they lived in when he was a little boy.

Enjoy decorating your home the way you want it to be. Whether it's truly "country" or "contemporary" or another specific style isn't important. It's making use of what you have and love.