Country Living Country Decorating was published by The Hearst Corporation in 1988 and was written by Bo Niles and the Country Living Magazine staff. This book celebrates Country Living’s 10 year anniversary and is filled with 256 pages of their favorite rooms, patterns and decorating information.

If you love country decorating, you’ll love this book. It’s packed with pictures of living rooms, dining rooms, kitchens, entrances, bedrooms and outdoor spaces. Looking for ways to display your rugs? Lots of ideas here!

The book begins with living rooms and includes a section on hooked and braided Antique Rugs. There are several pictures of Grenfell hooked rugs, named after a missionary Dr. Wilfred Grenfell, who helped the rugmakers of Labrador, Newfoundland make these between 1911 and 1940.

The chapters on dining rooms and entrances include pictures of wood floors, with stenciled checkerboard patterns. There are instructions and patterns for stenciling floors in the Country Craft chapter of this book. I’ve never stenciled floors before, but if you’ve been looking for ideas to spice up an old floor, stenciling may be what you’re looking for.

The chapter on Country Crafts also includes instructions for quilting, cross-stitch, candlewicking, country painting techniques, penny rugs, hooked rugs, dried flowers and potpourris, wreaths and ice candles.

“Penny Rugs” is my favorite. It includes pictures of eight different penny rugs and instructions to make a hexagon rug and an oval tongue rug. These sewn rugs are made from felt or tightly woven medium to heavy weight wool fabrics with a backing of burlap or heavyweight cotton or linen. The instructions explain how to sew and put the rugs together, but do not include any patterns. Seeing the pictures will help you to design your own unique rug.

More information to make Oval Tongue Rugs can be found in “The Craft of Handmade Rugs”, written in 1914 by Ami Mali Hicks, now available for free in the Google Library at https://www.books.google.com.

This book also includes instructions and a pattern for making a hooked rug with a floral pattern called the “Nottingham Rug”. If you are interested in learning rug hooking, I would encourage you to check out Volume 1 and Volume 2 of the “Rug Hooking Learn at Home Series” from Rug Hooking Magazine or Donna Lovelady’s book, "Rug Hooking for the First Time" before starting this rug. Recently, I’ve seen some videos on YouTube made by Gene Shepherd that maybe helpful as well.

I purchased Country Living Country Decorating at a discount shop. It can also be found in libraries or online at Amazon.com.
Buy Country Living Country Decorating from Amazon.com.