Bringing Primitive Decor to Your Kitchen

primitive_decor_for_kitchen
The kitchen is known as the heart of the home, and a country kitchen is known for its warmth, charm, and hospitality. Anyone can transform their kitchen into a country haven filled with down-home goodness and charming primitives. To do this a few key things must be remembered, but the rest is up to your own imagination.

Make Do and Be Practical
First and foremost, country decorating has to be practical. Look for storage and space solutions that perform their function, but that also have a make do” primitive decor feel. Iron hooks for pots and pans, hanging baskets and bundles of dried herbs and flowers, homespun fabric curtains and table linens, rag rugs, open shelves lined with baskets, and mason jars filled with pantry necessities all recollect a time when mostly everything was made by hand from simple materials, and everything served a purpose.

Of course, today these effects will be both decorative and functional, but remember when decorating your country kitchen that nostalgia is key. Don’t be afraid to mix nostalgia with modern technology: your stainless steel appliances alongside a weathered sideboard, your digital espresso-maker alongside a stoneware crock of primitive wooden spoons; the idea is to evoke nostalgia as well as serve a function.

Build A Little Character to Feel At Home
As Gail Abbott puts it in her book, Shoestring Chic: Extraordinary Style For Less, A [country] kitchen is a far cry from the clinical, minimalist look of many modern designs. Mugs hang from cup hooks, storage jars and jugs compete for space on the countertops, and visitors feel immediately at home when they sit at the fine old pine table.” The more character you can add to your kitchen, the more its users will feel at home. Character, in a primitive country kitchen, comes from small human touches. A bowl filled with warmly scented fixins“. Wooden and rusted pieces such as rolling pins, small buckets, and towel racks. In other words, pieces that appear as though they were made by hand long ago (or that actually were).

Comfort and sensory pleasure are also important components of your country decor. Add comforting details such as cushions, curtains, plants and wreaths, shelf-sitters, and garland or bunting. Handmade soap is a clean-smelling, healthy sink companion that is satisfying to use. A small vintage transistor radio can add another pleasurable dimension when tuned to happy music to cook by. Try to appeal to all five senses as you build character into your decor and visitors to your kitchen will never want to leave.

Create a Primitive Decor Focal Point with a Collection or Furniture Piece
Why not display a personal collection to help pull your kitchen together with a strong focal point? Any collection can make a great focal point as long as its components are country or primitive in nature: primitive dolls, pieces of Americana, baskets, old wooden crosses, and antique trade signs are a few possibilities.

A great piece of old furniture also makes a fantastic focal point, and has the added benefit of functioning as workspace or storage. Things like rustic, barn-wood tables, an antique pie safe, a vintage stove, or a well-worn piece of cabinetry with shelves are all wonderful, functioning furniture pieces that help pull a room together.
Remember to make do, be practical, add character, comfort, and a great focal piece and your kitchen will be transformed into a warm, welcoming primitive country environment for the whole family to enjoy.

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4 Comments

  1. I love these ideas. we will be building a cabin in the next few years and I always liked the practical side of the primitive and country decorating styles. When I make something or buy something I think first of how it will be used and in how many ways it can be used. If it will last and if its pretty. If something is just pretty it wont be in my cabin.

  2. love the look of the old country kitchens. wish i could make my kitchen look this. wonderful job.