7 Unique Rustic Home Decor Ideas That You Will Love

Last Updated on August 20, 2021 by Katherine

Rustic home decor is easily one of the most popular decor trends the world over. However, before you despair about not having a homestead out in the country somewhere, it is easy to incorporate this design style into your current home decor.

I love the rustic style because it emphasizes natural woods and materials and the neutral color scheme fits in with just about anywhere. You can work in pieces over time as your budget allows without making your home look incomplete because of this. It goes with nearly everything and anything!

If you’re curious, read on, I’m going to share with you 7 ways that you can add in some beautiful rustic home decor pieces that will not break your bank account, no matter what your budget is!

Neutral & Natural

With rustic decor, you’re going to want to aim to create or find pieces that boast neutral colors and natural textures.

For colors, you will want to look at earthy tones. I recommend selecting a warm taupe shade for walls if you are intending to paint. I love finding shades that are named after types of coffee, such as Cappuccino Froth by Behr. Choosing a dark color can sometimes visually shrink your room, so I always recommend lighter colors, accented with some darker shades in the furniture or floors.

Speaking of flooring, with rustic, you cannot go wrong with a beautiful hardwood or a laminate flooring (which will give you the hardwood look with less money). No matter your choice, you’re going to want to pick a style that looks natural. It doesn’t need to look like you just went out and chopped the tree down yourself, but the wood styling should show some knotting and grain.

Stone is also a good natural texture to incorporate. Check out 7 Ways Pebbles Will Change Your Home Decor for the Better for some tricks to bring in pebbles and river rocks into your home decor.

Feature Wall

When most people think of a feature wall, they think about painting one wall in the room a different color than the other three. You might also call this an accent wall.

Another really cool idea is to create a wooden or stone wall. I really love the idea of a wood wall and you can throw one of these beauties up for well under $100. Check out this super awesome tutorial from My Lovely Texas Home on YouTube. If you aren’t near a Home Depot, you can probably find many of these items at your local hardware store. I never thought about mixing two stains, but that is a clever idea to get a truly custom look!

Rustic Wall Art

Wall signs are a popular, yet quirky way to dress up a room. Many people find these at farmer’s markets, but you can totally make your own for under $20. In fact, I have an earlier post on that subject: How to Make an Amazingly Easy Custom Wood Sign You’ll Absolute Love.

To get a truly rustic look, I recommend choosing a dark brown stain rather than the grey shade I picked for the above tutorial. Also, you can try to find a blank wooden sign piece that has a lot of the natural wood texture in it, so the stain picks that up as well.

Re-Claiming Shelves

I like the idea of creating a quirky display shelf for all your little knick-knacks. With rustic home decor, you have a wide variety of options for your display options.

I love the idea of taking an object and repurposing it into something else. For example, you can take a wooden crate and change it into a beautiful display shelf by securing it to your wall.

Other Rustic Shelf Ideas

• Old Ladder into shelves.
• Galvanized tub with shelves.
• Wire baskets.

You can find many types of brackets that you can use to attach these to the walls of your home.

“Rustic-fy” Your Vases

You can also easily change an old vase to suit a new rustic motif. You can refinish most vases with chalk paint, which creates a beautiful look. 

Mason jars look especially good when finished with some chalk paint. Pick jars that have raised writing on them and once the paint is dry, take a light sanding paper over the raised lettering to weather things up a bit!

Small galvanized tubs also make great vases, and I love the idea of bringing a bit of metal into home decor. Galvanized watering cans and pitchers will also function well as vases and blend very well with the rest of your rustic home decor! Add some silk flowers or succulents to these vases for a bit of color. Dried flowers and grains also go well with this style.

Crated Bookshelf

You can find these plain wooden crates at Wal-mart, Michaels and likely even some hardware stores and dollar stores. They are incredibly useful and you can stain them just about any shade your heart desires. That makes them the perfect choice for making a beautiful rustic inspired bookshelf.

Read the DIY Crate Bookshelf Tutorial at Tara Michelle Interiors! I love the dark stain she’s chosen! You’ll need at least eight crates for a decently sized bookshelf, but you can go bigger or smaller by reducing that number.

Add A Barn Door (Or Two)

I could not complete this roundup post without mentioning a barn door. If you have an interior doorway in your home that is suited for this door, it is a slightly more expensive project to undertake, but worth it.

A barn style door will add an instant conversation piece to any room and provided you have room for the door to slide open once you purchase the materials, it isn’t too hard to throw it together.

For more details, please check out How to Make a DIY Rustic Barn Door and Hardware over at the Family Handyman!

Final Thoughts

Rustic home decor is easily one of the more popular home decor trends, thanks to shows like Fixer Upper. It’s easy to see why many people have taken to adopting elements of it into their own homes. I love the charming and natural look that shines through in these projects! I also love that you don’t need to drop a fortune to get the look that you want. Make them with your own two hands!

I hope you found this post helpful. Tell me what project you loved the most by commenting down below or tagging this post in a comment on social media! I’d love to spread the word about this fun decor style. Also, please pin this post to Pinterest as it helps me figure out what projects my readers most enjoy reading about so that I can create more helpful content for you!

That’s all for now, until next time, stay crafty, my friends!