Simple Steps for Creating a Colonial Home
Colonial Cabinetry
Simple Steps for Creating a Colonial Home
Touring a Colonial-style home in a museum is a fun experience. However, designing one can be challenging, especially when you don’t know how to incorporate the traditional and beautiful style into your living space.
Décor Style of Colonial Homes
British colonial homes featured high ceilings for keeping the interiors cool during the hot Indian summer. The walls adorned with white or pale colors also contributed to creating a peaceful environment. Such colors do a great job at reflecting heat and making the space feel airy and light. In addition to that, arched floor-to-ceiling doors or windows allow ample natural light for promoting cross-ventilation.
Not to forge the classic bell jar lanterns, staple items of colonial homes, featuring colored or transparent glass covers. Wallpaper and fabrics featured a toile design that was incredibly popular during the colonial period. The use of handmade furniture, inspired by the early American frontier, was also widespread.
Chairs and farm tables featured intricate carvings with imprinted floral design elements. The most common types of wood for constructing colonial furniture included cherry, elm, maple, and hickory. Brass was famous for making doorknobs and handles for drawers, cabinets, and armoires. Copper and brass lanterns, wall sconces, and chandeliers were also part of most American Colonial interiors.
Easy Steps for Giving a Colonial Vibe to your Home
If you are looking for some of the easiest and simple ways to transform your home and make it look like one of those beautiful colonial homes from the movies or décor magazines, here are some valuable tips and ideas.
Simplicity Is the Key
Colonial homes go back to the 1600s when settlers first arrived in America to build new lives for themselves. Simple construction techniques and the use of natural materials led to primary square-shaped homes. Whenever you set up a colonial-style house, create a cozy environment with rustic furniture, neutral-colored walls, and traditional lighting fixtures. You can also make simple additions to your home’s exterior by adding porch furniture and planters for creating a formal and welcoming seating area.
Neutral Paint Colors
Choosing muted and neutral colors for your home’s exterior and interior will maintain the look of your colonial home. Since people living in the colonial era didn’t have access to today’s popular contemporary paint colors, most people living in those times usually left their homes bare of any paint. Many homeowners kept an earthy shade of beige on the clapboards, accented with brick-colored doors and chocolate-brown shutters. Dusty blues and woodsy greens were other popular paint choices for the exterior.
Landscaping for Colonial Homes
You can choose conventional landscaping design options for keeping the colonial tradition alive. Bushes make a beautiful addition to your elevation as they draw the focus away from the yard and toward your elegant home. Don’t forget to place colorful flowers to add pops of color to your landscaping.
Lightweight Fabrics
Collectors who created the décor style trotted worldwide, bringing back souvenirs of authentic textiles in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean. That’s why you spot a heavy use of animal prints, botanical prints, ikats, and paisleys in linen and lighter-weight cotton. Choose simper prints for your colonial home and avoid elaborate woven silks for the drapery and upholstery of your home.
Traditional Shutters
Give your living space a colonial touch with window shutters, used initially for controlling breeze, shutting storms, and blocking tropical heat in colonial homes. Constructed out of local wood, the shutters usually boasted their natural wood finish in most colonial décor settings.
You can go for tall louvered wooden shutters to add a timeless and sophisticated touch to your colonial-style living space. Paint these shutters to match your doors, windows, or furniture in the room.
Furniture
Mahogany, teak, and ebony continue to be the most popular wood types for creating customized colonial-style furniture. Typically, colonial homes featured elegant and stunning handcrafted furniture accessories such as side tables, farmhouse tables, hanging cupboards, chimney cupboards, wall shelves, and much more.
Here are a couple of traditional furniture items for your colonial homes.
A Long Dining Table
Your colonial home would be incomplete without a long and sturdy table that offers everyone a chance to indulge in a warm meal by the crackling fire. Gorgeous black spindle chairs add more charm to your dining table without taking up too much room or being clunky. Don’t forget to add a beautiful china hutch for flaunting your best serving pieces and your love for traditional furniture.
A Four-Poster Bed
The hallmark canopy bed is the perfect reason to fall in love with the colonial décor. These formal beds add a touch of sophistication and timeless charm to your home. Using lightweight cotton or linen materials for draping these beds is a great idea. Look for botanical or animal prints and batiks for a beautiful colonial appeal.
Floor-to-ceiling curtains add more drama, while the pale accents and white make the perfect colors for the bedroom walls. Lamps, lanterns, a rocking chair, and jute rugs can also complement the dark wood floors of your colonial home.
Kitchen Cabinets and Countertops
Stand-alone cabinets, open shelving, and a beautiful farm table were all part of a standard colonial kitchen. Using forged iron hardware, historic paints colors, and pine or maple for your kitchen cabinets can give your kitchen a warm and welcoming feeling for a colonial fee. Inset doors and drawers, wood Countertops, and grain-matched doors and drawers make easy ways to create a welcoming colonial kitchen.
Get the Best Colonial Furniture from Period Design Company
Based in Ohio, our company offers customized colonial-style furniture for your décor needs. We use various species and types of wood for creating traditional-style furniture through modern manufacturing technologies. We are proud to provide affordable and gorgeous colonial-style furniture ideas that fit your budget and needs.
Contact us today if you want to know more about revamping your home to create a welcoming, warm, and inviting colonial home. Period Design Company offers customized period-inspired furniture and kitchen cabinetry solutions for everyone.