Provence Style I: Real Home Decorating Ideas from the Foothills

If your looking for tips and ideas for decorating provence style, you've come to the right place. Contemporary Provencal style (from Provence, the South of France, not to be confused with provincial, anywhere outside Paris) is a delicate balance between sleek bold lines and vintage country. Overdesign and you’ll find that somewhere along the line you’ve lost the soul you were after to begin with. Pile too many old baskets on top of your kitchen cabinets and soon your place will begin to feel as dusty and stale as those old bouquets of dried lavender & blue thistle you really should renew every spring.

The following tips and inspiration come from a centuries old stone bergerie or shepherd’s cabin that was remodeled with timeless chic in the 1960s by a museum director and his artist wife, and kept up to date over the years by its successive owners, friends of the original family.

Part One, Decorating Provence Style, is dedicated to simple decorating ideas that can easily be used in any home. Part Two, Remodeling Provence Style, offers inspiration for people who want to take the look a step further with ideas that require more planning to implement.

1. Use colored glass to capture southern sunlight

Except perhaps for the occasional splash of lavender, traditional Provence style homes tend to be colored in natural tones. For a "light" handed touch, color your interior with a jewel-toned glow by placing that vintage bottle you've been wondering what to do with in a sunlit window. Haven’t got one? Look for one on e-bay or at the flea market that works well with any other colors you may have. If you find on the other hand you have too many beautiful pieces of colored glass to choose from, use several for an indoor rainbow.

2. Take cues from nature

This vintage lava ceramic pitcher was bought at a local vide grenier (literally ‘attic-emptier’, the closest thing to a garage sale you’ll find in France) for a mere one euro—no bargaining. Here it recalls the play of dappled sunlight and lichens on the stone retaining wall and railroad tie steps behind the house, or the feathers of the rare raptors that have been reintroduced to the valley.

3. Plant succulents in a terra cotta roof tile

Whether you've got a vintage tile like this one that still bears the shape of the potter's knee, or a new tile you can age by slathering it with yogurt, curved terra cotta roof tiles make great planters for succulents with their shallow roots. If you’re not going to be around to water them, stopping up the ends with plaster will help retain any humidity a little longer.

4. Take cotton sheeting to the top

Whether you’ve got 12 ft. ceilings and want to avoid the heavy look of too much drapery or a low ceiling you’re hoping to lift visually, inexpensive cotton sheeting hung high is all you need. In the first case, use a wide hem (about a foot) to give curtains some body. In the second case, be sure to hang the rod as close to the ceiling as possible. If you don’t have molding, hang curtains directly from a rail attached to the ceiling as shown here.

5. Store your bread in a tin box

Bread keeps amazingly well in tin boxes. The vintage box shown here is large enough to hold even the longest baguette bent in two, plus an olive loaf, a walnut loaf, and an anchovy fougasse, the Provençal cousin of the focaccia. The colors marry well with the dusty blue grey of Provence and the stones the house is built of.

6. Hang laundry out to dry

There’s nothing like fresh laundry blowing in the breeze, especially if you’ve added lavender water to the rinse cycle. A landscaped spot out of neighbors’ line of sight is the best place to hang a line and indulge in your own environmentally sound, sensual laundry experience in the sunny months. Use wooden clothespins and hang the line on fat vintage hooks and nails in the wall that will still look nice when you take the line down.

7. Limit the breeze to curtains and laundry, not doors

Been wondering what to do with that set of heavy, unidentifiable objects you couldn’t resist dragging in off the street? Use them as door stops like the… uh… heavy, unidentifiable but irresistible objects seen here.

8. Bring nature inside

A work of nature can become inspiring art if thoughtfully selected and placed. It may take time to find the perfect piece and the perfect spot, but unlike an investment in a painting or sculpture, you can always switch off found pieces, and in the search, you may just find you’ve trained your eyes to look at nature in a different light.

9. Take art outside

You may not have the funds or the space in your backyard for a tower of congealed automobiles by Provence’s own sculptor Arman, but you might still hang art that can withstand exposure to the elements on an outside wall. Depending on your budget, scour the galleries or consider checking with local art schools to see if any of their students are crafting projects that might work for you.

10. Double up on mirrors for all ages

Found mirrors that almost match but not quite enough to balance each other out symmetrically on either side of a door, for instance? Try hanging one over the other in a powder room or other area where the different heights will satisfy the vainest of visitors, large or small!

11. Grow aromatic herbs

There’s a saying in Provence that a shepherd’s rear end will always smell like thyme. It refers to sitting contemplatively among the wild thyme that thrives in the climes of Provence, which may not thrive in yours. Lavender and aromatic herbs can freshen any window sill however and still be useful in the kitchen. Even lavender is delicious with white peaches poached in lemon verbena for instance. For a contemporary look, consider trailing rosemary varieties like Huntington Carpet that tumble over a stone retaining wall .

12. Find uses for farm tools

Be creative!