Affordable Dining Room Decor: Comfortable Cabin Style

If you prefer a casual dining room style over fussy formal decor, a rustic or cabin style dining room may be just what you’re hungry for. While it’s easy to find rustic style accessories for the dining room at most home goods stores, you may want to consider these inexpensive and creative accents so you can save the biggest part of your budget on large ticket items like furniture, dinnerware and a lighting fixture.

Any neutral palette on the walls will work with rustic style, so if the walls are already done in a shade of ivory, tan, taupe or earthy shades of brown or green, you have a good background for a rustic style dining room. Inexpensive pottery dishes embellished with acorns, pinecones, trees or leaves will be more affordable than china. It’s ok to mix and match patterned pieces and buy dinnerware from open stock sources rather than sets; this will make it easier to replace broken or damaged pieces later. Solid colored plates and bowls with a raised edge in a rustic theme in colors like mustard, pine green or chocolate brown make a rich contrast to patterned pieces, and dinner plates can serve as chargers for smaller pieces. Also consider resale shops and antique stores where you may be able to pick up complementary serving pieces, trays, pitchers and teapots for a few dollars. Pewter pieces in particular, work well in a rustic setting and can often be found in antique stores for very little. Arrange a collection of pewter plates and mugs to accessorize a shelf or table top.

When it comes to accessories like placemats, napkin rings, centerpieces and window treatments you can spend a lot of money in a hurry if you’re not careful. Make it easy to stick to your budget and still carry your theme throughout the dining room with these creative ideas.

Rustic Faux Wood Placemats

Wood veneer placements in sets of four or six can cost a tidy sum. Instead, purchase inexpensive vinyl placements and wood grain shelf liner. Roll out enough shelf liner to cover one side of a placement, turn it over and trace the outline of the placement on the backside of the shelf liner. Cut the shelf paper along your traced lines, remove the backing and carefully press it into place. Do the same for the backside and you’ll have reversible wood grain place mats. They will look surprising like real wood mats at a fraction of the cost and when the table is set with your dishes and glassware no one will ever suspect that they are a budget stand-in.

Cloth Napkins and Rustic Leather Rings

Budget cloth napkins are inexpensive enough to use every day so buy enough to use for a week or two and toss them into the washer as needed. If you use the dining room for breakfast and lunch use pretty dish washing towels instead of cloth napkins; use them only for dining and wash as needed. When they start to look worn, use them to wash dishes in the kitchen. Inexpensive wood napkin rings can be picked up for very little at a discount store or buy a roll of leather cording and create a tied knotted loop large enough to accommodate a rolled cloth napkin. For a little more embellishment pick up stone beads at a craft store and weave the leather through them then tie them into napkin rings.

Rustic Candle Centerpiece

Turn nature’s bounty into a rustic centerpiece. Collect acorns and pinecones from outdoors. Wipe them down and freeze them or place them in a 200 degree oven for about 45 minutes to kill any insect or larva. Arrange them on a pewter tray or shallow bowl with unscented pillar candles and top with a glass hurricane or lantern,

Ideas for Cabin-Style Wall Decor

Shop sales and home goods stores for wall candle scones, wood frame rustic mirrors, wall shelves and other wooden wall art with a rustic cabin look. You can often find very unusual, campy or retro prints, paintings, vintage plates, pewter pieces, metal wall sculpture and more at antique stores. Arrange a grouping of cabin theme or pewter plates on a wall, or create a collage on a wall shelf. Scenes of mountain lakes, woodsy cabins, trout streams and wildlife can be the basis for focal point above a server or between a set of rustic wall sconces.

 

Window Treatment Ideas

Simple inexpensive window treatments will be easy to create in cabin style. Budget unfinished shutters can be stained and given a distressed finished and mounted to cover the lower half of windows. Purchase inexpensive linen panels to hang from the top of the window to the floor, or dive into the latest burlap trend, creating panels from rolls of burlap with corporate logos and text still on the burlap. If you prefer a valance, create an easy triangular shaped valance by draping a square piece of fabric over a café rod letting the points match and point downward. Let a trip to a fabric store will inspire you with everything from bandana prints to vintage cowboy prints, or simple raised nap cotton with tree, pinecone or acorn themes. A small table cloth can stand in for a valance as well.

All text copyright Shanel. Photo from Flikr - "Villa Sienna Dining room 2" courtesy of Gatsby.