More and more I am moving Little Green away from its modern style and into one filled with rustic goodness. If you have been following my blog for awhile now, you may have seen some country aspects already creeping in like with this post here, or this one here. Living in the prairies, it may seem like a logical shift to have a more rustic-inspired home. Contrary to popular belief, while I did grow up on the fields, we Canadians don’t all currently live on them. In fact, our first home as a married couple was a new, ultramodern, very green condominium. We had granite countertops, engineered hardwood floors, expensive European appliances, custom window treatments, high ceilings, the works. Do you know what? After about 6 months of living there, I hated it. Everything eventually broke, and what didn’t break, I somehow damaged with either doing crafts, having pets, or in just being a living, breathing entity. It felt more like a museum than a home, and I couldn’t wait to move into an old bungalow that was already broken into and screamed character.

When we bought Little Green, we went from a place that was built in 2010 to one that was built in the 1920s. It was a daunting time warp, and one that I wasn’t quite sure how to style. My first mistake was reusing the same paint that we used in our condo to apply to the walls in our new home. Suddenly, the cool greys, blacks, and stark whites were clashing with the stain that covered our hardwood floors and baseboards. It looked off to me, yet I couldn’t put my finger on why. I began to panic, and so we ended up rectifying our paint scheme by either adding stripes to the walls and  adding furniture with cool tones. Then, one day, I finally figured out that we had to go with warmer paints. By choosing softer yellows, greens, and whites, Little Green felt more like a recipe that was coming together rather than one that left an aftertaste in your mouth. I also slowly got rid of our modern furniture, and over the course of the past year, we have almost replaced it all with more natural fabrics, warm woods, and more recently (and completely inspired from my mum’s decor), animal subjects.

Our newest addition is our antler light that I bought off of eBay for $100. We changed out our modern light in our front entrance with it, and it’s beginning to pull our entryway and dining room together nicely. I think that it plays well off of our more rural motifs, and with our 8 foot ceilings, our tall visitors will no longer be getting a string of crystal beads caught in their hair when they enter our home. I feel that this fact alone has made it a winner.

Emory