Achieving the Shabby-Chic Look For Your Home

Rustic, relaxed elegance… that’s what the shabby chic-style is all about. More and more, people are gravitating towards this interior design aesthetic. For one, this gives off the laidback atmosphere of a French country farmhouse or a cottage by the beach. With this type of style, you achieve a light and airy, pretty and playful environment where you can immediately feel at home with.

Here are some ideas on how you can incorporate the shabby-chic style in any room:

• Add a welcoming note. At your entryway, decorate your distressed console table with shabby-chic accents. These can include some silver and glass candleholders and some flowers in rustic vases and old bottles artfully wrapped in hemp. Add more texture with an oversized and empty antique picture frame. Another option would be to use an old farmhouse glass window. This ensemble provides a warm welcome to any who enter your home.
• Revamp your slipcovers. Add a touch of whimsy with floral, striped or gingham slipcovers for the chairs and sofas. You can also cover baroque style sofas with white or another light color. A word of caution, though.Do not overdo the florals and other patterns - just use these as accents.
• Play with different styles and colors. Shabby chic is about highlighting mismatched flea-market finds and hand-me-downs from relatives, as well as old and upcycled treasures such as vintage picture frames, mirrored frames and antique furniture. Play with furnishings and accessories in different styles, colors and textures. These include stained and distressed wood, polished silver, wrought iron and ceramic items. To tie down the look and prevent it from looking too cluttered, you should ensure that there are parallels in terms of scale, form, line and finish.
• Have a vintage display. Using a number of vintage picture frames in varying shapes and sizes, put up a gallery display of prized mementos. Using an oval picture frame with bubble glass, you can display an antique portrait of your grandmother. You can also display love letters, antique plates and clocks.
• Upcycle old doors and windows. You can simply get an ancient door or an oversized window and lean it against the wall in one corner of the room. You can also upcycle an old door by transforming it into a shelf. Mount the old door on a wall, install a wooden shelf or two and add wooden corbels at the bottom.
• Say it with flowers. Plant some colorful flowers in a number of large mason jars. Set this up inside a wooden box that will serve as your holder. For fresh cut flowers, use colorful wine bottles (especially those with wide openings), tin cans, white porcelain flower vases, antique metal pitchers, wooden buckets and glass jars.
• Light it up. Chandeliers or bead lighting fixtures make an excellent addition to your shabby-chic décor. Another option would be to use a hanging lantern or any exterior lighting fixture to light up a private area such as your home office or dining area.
• Organize your crafting tools. Of course, you need your crafting tools to make a lot of these ideas possible! Dedicate a corner of your home for your crafting equipment and accessories. You can use white or pastel paint, along with pieces of twine, lace and handmade paper to adorn some used tin cans. This is where you can organize crafting scissors, pens and paintbrushes. These decorated tin cans also make useful and pretty organizers for your home office.