Faux Antiques – Primitive Decorating Trend
Vintage looking Folk Art is all the rage these days. You’ve seen it around I’m sure, it’s a partial spin off of ’shabby chic’ – taking tired or new pieces of furniture and making them look like farmhouse antiques.
Primitive Decorating
A friend of mine took a horrendous looking veneer-coated, monstrously ugly bookshelf from the 70s, added a crackle finish and some antique yellow paint and now has a highly coveted focal piece in her dining room for less than she’d pay for a framed print.
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 | US $5,000.00 (0 Bid) End Date: Thursday Nov-12-2009 16:06:14 PST Bid now | Add to watch list |
As antiques move further out of most people’s price range, we’ll all trying to find other interesting items from the past to give our home that worn, cozy look. This technique of taking a not-quite-antique adding a little work and turning it into a primitive looking piece that fits right into a country decorating style for pennies on the dollar. Finish it off with some folk-art pieces, a few framed prints and some dried grasses and you’ve got comfort, warmth and style on a low-end budget.
Other great ideas for walls and primitive accents are vintage signs (or hand painted signs made to look antique), re-purposed sap pails, old barn board that have been made into shelves and toolboxes – all are fine examples of the new primitive decorating style.
Make it Faux Antique
To add that flavor of generations gone by to our pre-built, non-custom houses just fill up your house with country colors and a few coats of paint on some otherwise tired furniture pieces that you buy at yard sales, second hand shops or have handed down from family.
You can take any wood or veneer piece, throw rocks at it, sand down the edges, apply crackle paint, paint a country scene, varnish over it for a time-worn and waxed look, slap on some stain on the corners (if you want a truly aged, found-in-the-old-barn look) and you’ve nailed the look!
True Vintage Folk Art
Lately collectors have been all over vintage folk art pieces. These are true pieces made by a homesteader or farmer, by hand, out of necessity. Or sometimes on a whim (a homestead checkerboard to pass the long winter night away with is a good example of whimsy as is any other vintage game board or hand made toy).
The trend of Tramp Art collecting is also catching up. Tramp art is art that was originally made by gypsies, traveling road shows and hobos who would make items to try and sell out of whatever they could find. Cigar boxes were made into clocks. Odd bits of wood fashioned into artful statues. If you’re looking for antiques, or collectibles for future antiques, check out www.futureantique.com (list of UK Antiques, US, Australia and Canada antiques here).
Primitive Art and Saltbox Scenes
Back then, on the farm, people tried to ‘dress up’ their homes with primitive painted pieces. Saltbox farm scenes – with cows, horses and sheep were often the theme of these paintings. We’re moving back to this trend in country decorating now as you’ve likely seen in some of the more popular magazines.
On walls or cupboard doors people are painting primitive art scenes – saltbox house scenes without much detail, done in a style of a beginning artist. You’ll sometimes hear of this as Naive Art.
The colors are warm and muted and often the artist will wash the finished piece with wood stain to give that aged appearance. Usually just a house and one or two animals with a few trees.
Why not try your own hand at creating a piece of primitive art? You might be pleasantly surprised to find that you can do it yourself!
Below are some examples of primitive decorating. If you want to look more at saltbox art and prints see the primitive art page. Some fabulous items for sale below – from farm tools to candles to vintage signs. Return here often to see what’s new. Items are updated many times throughout the day!
You might like to buy a piece to study – most artists have a similar style in this trend – country colors and simplistic painting ability (I’m not knocking it, I paint this way myself sometimes! It’s fun!).
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