Bring Outdoors Inside Home Decor

Even when we create our shelters from the elements, we are never far from the influence of nature. In fact, landscapes and seascapes form some of the most common artworks in virtually any kind of decor, giving home decorators a useful guide to the room's color scheme, including coordinating area rugs.

All the colors that we bring indoors to decorate our homes are reflected in nature. What's more, even the most urban of environments, such as homes done in the sharp simplicity of Modern or Contemporary design, have been enhanced by art that depicts an element of land or sea. Traditional style decor and the many variations of Cottage/Country design could hardly be complete without at least one landscape. In fact, the Beach Cottage style would be considered unfinished without at least one seascape hanging on a wall.

The rich variety of the seasons gives limitless options for home decoration. As a matter of fact, some home decorators change their designs as the seasons change, using lighter, cooler fabrics and accessories for spring and summer, and richer, warmer furnishings for fall and winter. This method naturally works best when the artwork on the walls and the area rugs on the floors change with the seasons as well. Decorators who'd like to follow the seasons in their home style would do well to start with a neutral color palette on walls and floors, so that the seasonal changes won't clash with their surroundings.

Next, decorators will have to make some basic choices about the background of their designs. Should they stick with springtime pastels throughout summer or go with the stronger colors of later spring? Keep the harvest shades of autumn until spring comes or swap them out for the stark contrasts of winter?

The vivid colors of an autumn forest are ideal to bring some seasonal texture and color into a home. Hang a landscape of trees in their fall colors, change the slipcovers and pillows on the furniture and put maple red area rugs on the floor. The room's mood changes entirely. When winter comes, swap out the autumn painting for a snowy scene of bringing home the Yuletide tree, and another color scheme emerges: perhaps deep pine green area rugs and pillow covers.

Sometimes landscapes and seascapes can depict such classic nature scenes that they serve to set the mood for a year-round room style. A lone pine perched on the edge of a red-clay cliff, or a winter pond painted in shades of dusky purple and white, can provide a focal point that determines a color scheme as well as a decor style. Countless landscapes of cowboys, horses and cattle have adorned the walls of Western and rustic decorated rooms, while seascapes from full gales to calm harbors have set off nautical themes in many a den or study. In each case, from tranquil tropic turquoise seas to dusty browns of distant trails, the colors and motifs in these paintings serve to guide a room's mood, balance and harmony from bright-white ceilings to deep blue rugs on the floor.