Cowboy Decor

I was never really aware of the Western look and feel until I spent a summer on a ranch in Montana. Now it wasn't an authentic western ranch – we knew that from the beginning. It was more of a tourist ranch, of course. It was a place for people to get away from it all, enjoy horseback riding, fine cooked meals, swimming, and all of the other thrills of the woods.

It was a lot of fun and the place looked sensational. What interested me most was the cowboy decor. If I had seen it in another environment, I might have thought that the cowboy home decor looked pretty hokey. There were old western saloon signs, table lamps made out of scraps of wood and antlers, and all kinds of other artifacts of the old West. In the right context, however, it looks sensational. The great thing about Western decor is that it can transport you to another time. It allows you to play make-believe – imagining a simpler life and a lonelier, emptier continent. I fell in love with it almost right away.

When I got home, in fact, I got my own cowboy decorations pretty quickly. My wife was having none of it. She has a much more modern interior design look that she likes. She did not want to bring any rustic decor into the house, no matter how much I liked it. In the end, it came down to compromise. We did the living room in cowboy decor, the dining room and kitchen in her style, and decided to wait on the bedroom.

Soon, however, she started to be won over to the cowboy decor. My wife is someone who doesn't really like changes. It takes a long time for her to warm up to a new idea. Nevertheless, the warm tones of the cowboy lighting and decorations really helped elevate the mood of the room. Soon, we were putting elements of cowboy decor in all of the rooms. Slowly but surely, my idea of design was taking over the house.

When you are going for cowboy decor, don't start all at once. It is a harder style to get looking right than you might think. You can put cute souvenir signs up with pictures of 6-shot pistols, but to get a true western look, you need to work at it. Otherwise, you won't have a look that has lasting impact.

Summary