Decor is a nation, rustic design that dates from the earliest days of settlement from the Europeans. It was the design of a can-do people and relied upon re-purposed household goods and home-crafted objects to liven up easy pottery plates, a bare wood plank and a pewter spoon or fork. Don’t create a cluttered, crammed and busy centerpiece for your table; little time or patience for touches that are fancy and such frippery was abandoned in the day’s dawn-to-dusk labour.
Light Fantastic
A battered silver tray, relic of some family glory, will maintain tin funnels . Slip a crocheted cloth under the funnel-candlesticks to be extra-fancy. Beam gentle light back on the candles from above with a cluster of mason jars dangled on cords that are light from the round surface of a wood barrel, attached like a medallion to the ceiling. An clear or Edison-style round light bulb is held by each mason jar. Successful decorators mix Ancient American charm with modern convenience in a dining room that is functioning.
A Pitcher of Blue
There is A tooth pitcher tall and sturdy enough to maintain the blooms from the garden. Fill the pitcher with cut hydrangeas, the bluer the better, set it onto a primitive timber tray that is hand-carved, and scatter Meyer lemons that are glowing . Add some whimsy with one or two beat-up tin colonial toy soldiers perched under the flowers amid the lemons.
Orchard, Garden, Table
Fill out a distressed wood garden trug using green, red and yellow apples; place it at the table’s middle. At Thanksgiving and Halloween, swap the apples for decorative gourds and orange pumpkins. Christmas and yule mean boughs of pine, with its long needles. Apples are best for most of the year because they bruise or don’t spoil easily, and you can combine or monochrome the skin colours.
Scrap Candlestick
Screw and glue together broad parts of square and bun feet table legs and molding to make a chunky base to get a pillar candle. Distress each bit of paint and timber each section in a different colour of milk paint, following application instructions to create the paint. Hand-paint or decoupage a Primitive-style farm scene using just the colours available to the majority of people throughout the Colonial period — barn reds, black, cream, yellow, browns and beiges, white. Glue a small, rusted tin with borders to the peak of the stack and also a piece of felt to the ground. Insert a beeswax candle and a box of wooden matches, and then ring the supper bell.