Cottage Garden Design
Cottage Garden Design decorating is fun, can be rather inexpensive, and is so satisfying to the person who loves the great outdoors.
This garden style is based on a used look...not shabby, but worn, perhaps faded, and definitely well aged. If you are forced to buy something new, or to use a newer item from your old décor, you would do well to antique, distress, or weather it yourself.
You can bring that airy, summer garden feel right into your home and enjoy it all year long. You can do one room or the whole house in garden design. So what changes your room into a garden style?
The whole object of cottage garden design is to bring the feel of the outdoors into your house. Any room that has a large window or sliding doors has already made this easier for you. Start with your walls. You need a fair amount of white in the room, so if you prefer not to have it on your walls, make sure it is represented in the furniture, fabrics and accessories.
In any case, the walls would look great using garden inspired colors such as: sage green, earthy tan, terra cotta, or gold colors. If you go with white, add just a touch of some pastel color to the paint, and get your color into the fabrics. The object here is to keep the room bright and cheerful.
Hang lots of prints that add to your scheme.
Do you prefer summer or spring? Choose prints of flowers, budding trees, butterflies, birds, etc. that depict that. Or take some of your own photos of your garden and frame them!
Go for sheer window treatments with pull up shades if they are needed for privacy. Hardwood and tile floors (never highly finished ) can be accented with floral area rugs or woven mats.
The best style choices for your chairs, and sofa, are wicker, rattan, or bamboo. Your furniture doesn’t have to match, but you can tie it together by painting it all white and using the same fabrics or at least the same color schemes on them. A nice floral will work, or you can use a solid earth tone and add floral and colorful pillows to it.There is a certain casual, eclectic charm in decorating this way.
If the room you are making over is a bedroom, you might want to use wrought iron furniture. If you prefer wood, stay with something light and natural looking.
Make your own coffee table or end tables by taking something outdoorsy, like a hunk of tree stump, a large piece of pottery, or a solid ceramic animal and placing a thick piece of tempered glass on it. Or use a outdoor bench as your coffee table. If that sounds intimidating, get yourself a wrought iron or a glass table. So what is left to do to perfect your cottage garden room? Here are a few suggestions:
- Use a wicker basket or an old wooden bucket for your magazines.
- Green plants, vines, and flowers should be plentiful.
- Use a watering can instead of traditional pots.
- Display primitive garden tools.
- A little decorative fountain, placed inconspicuously, will add ambiance.
- A wall clock made out of a birdhouse.
- A basket or rough wooden bowl filled with rocks, geodes or pine cones.
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