How To Bring French Country Into Your Home
French country decorating is one of the most popular forms of country decorating today, yet many are confused about how to introduce this look into their homes.
French country decorating need not be expensive or difficult, and you don’t need to go out and purchase a whole new room. It is easy to introduce touches of the French country style without changing your entire decorating scheme.
French country style is a European version of our own American country style that has been popular for generations. French country however, adds more elegance, curved lines, and contrasts with weathered finishes and lots of texture. It is NOT a Parisian apartment! It is a style of the wonderful people of Provence, who work hard, play hard, and love the colors, textures and scents of the outdoors. Common colors in the French country style are golden yellows, deep reds, French blues and saturated greens. Color is vibrant in Provence because of the harsh sunlight. (Hey, the grapes love it!) Themes are not necessary for a French country room, but some common ones are roosters, grapes and wine, lavender and other herbs. Here are some great ideas for introducing the French country style into your present décor.
*Ironwork or metalwork is very popular in French country design, and you can easily find such material in candleholders, wall grilles, and wire baskets.
*Paint a couple of your furniture pieces with a crackle finish. Pair the weathered finish with an elegant fabric table runner. Try using satin black paint on a piece or two for an elegant look.
*Details are important in the French countryside…add trim to your draperies, dress up your throw pillows with ribbon, buttons, or even old beads and jewelry, and make sure comfort abounds in soft throws and well read books.
*Use fabrics that are traditional French country fabric. Toile is quintessentially French country, and depicts country scenes in one color over a neutral background. Red and yellow florals and small geometric prints look fantastic, and black and white checks are fun!
*Use candles, flowers and fabric lavishly.
*The French love to entertain; make it easy to invite loved ones over for an impromptu celebration. Start collecting pretty plates you love, mix and match them at the table, just keep a common color theme and they will blend beautifully. Stoneware and pottery pieces are very French country. Table linens are colorful, and flowers and candles are a must.
*Finally, don’t forget the rule of contrast with French country decorating. Pair weathered paint or metal with formal fabrics or beading trim, cozy up a more formal dining chair with a black, red or blue checked fabric. Bring in baskets to hang and use, and hang elegant copper pots off a rustic pot rack sporting a wonderful old patina. Rub a glaze over a curvy lamp base to antique and distress its finish, or better yet, glaze those white kitchen cabinets. Add chicken wire to cabinet doors that hold your best china and wineglasses, and make sure you find a French landscape or floral print to hang somewhere in the room.
Adding French country style to your existing décor can add that sense of elegance you’ve been looking for, is fun, and can be done gradually and with purpose. Enjoy sharing the style of family, friends, and good food and wine!
Kathy Wilson
http://www.articlesbase.com/home-improvement-articles/how-to-bring-french-country-into-your-home-129032.html
This is from the times "The Hemisphere: HISPANIOLA: A History of Hate" What is your opinion on the Dominican?
One October night in 1937, he ordered his army to eliminate all Haitian squatters in the Dominican Republic. In a 36-hour bloodbath, some 15,000 men, women and children were massacred.
‘THERE, in that high and mountainous land, is the land of God." The date was Sept. 12, 1504, the speaker was Christopher Columbus, and the occasion was his fourth and final departure from the island he discovered in 1492. Columbus named it La Isla Española because it reminded him of Spain. For the Spaniards and French who followed him, for the Indians they slaughtered, for the Negro slaves they imported, and for anyone within a bullet’s range last week, Hispaniola was more like hell on earth than the warm, jasmine-scented paradise it might be. Last week marked the third time in 50 years that U.S. troops have been forced to intervene in the affairs of the forlorn, hate-filled little Caribbean island.
Hispaniola became Spain’s first permanent colony in the New World, its key harbor and free port to all the Indies. From the Santo Domingo capital, Ponce de León sailed forth to Florida, Balboa discovered the Pacific, Pizarro invaded Peru, and Cortés conquered Mexico. It was the site of Latin America’s first cathedral in 1514, its first university in 1538. Even then it was a land of violence, where men carried the law in their knives, and the captains from Castile thought nothing of shearing an ear from a disobedient Indian or letting their dogs disembowel him.
Through war, wile and treaty, France managed to get possession of the 30,000-sq.-mi. island toward the end of the 18th century. Concentrating on the western third of the mountainous land, the French brought in thousands of colonists, and with them came vast numbers of Negro slaves from Africa. The French called their Caribbean possession Saint Domingue, termed it the "Queen of the Antilles." So it was. In the 1780s, its foreign trade approached $140 million a year, with vast profits from sugar, coffee, cocoa, cotton and indigo flowing back home. Before long, 40,000 whites were lording it over 450,000 blacks. Then one night in August 1791, the island’s painfully oppressed slaves rose in bloody revolt. Armed with pitchforks, torches and machetes and chanting voodoo dirges, they massacred 2,000 French planters and their families on the western third of the island.
Over the next century, dictator followed dictator in Haiti. By 1910, rebellions had ousted 13 of Haiti’s first 18 Presidents. Then, in the space of 47 months, one President was blown up in his palace, another was believed poisoned, three were deposed, and the last was grabbed by a mob and hacked into small pieces. President Woodrow Wilson finally ordered U.S. Marines to occupy the country in 1915. They remained 19 years?and gave Haiti the only true peace it has ever known. Acting through puppet Presidents, they disarmed rebels and bandits, built roads, irrigation projects, sanitation facilities, and organized schools and hospitals. F.D.R. withdrew the marines in 1934, and Haiti returned to its old ways: nine governments in 20 years, the last headed by François ("Papa Doc") Duvalier, 58, a onetime country physician who took office in 1957, proclaimed himself "President for life," and rules through voodoo mysticism and the strong-arm terror of his 5,000-man Tonton Macoute secret police.
Of Haiti’s 4,500,000 people, 90% are illiterate. Life expectancy is 32.6 years; per-capita income has slipped to $70 a year, lowest in the hemisphere. "Haitians," says Duvalier in his soft whisper, "have a destiny to suffer." And if his people complain, they can pray?from a 63-page Catechism of the Revolution turned out by the Government Printing Office and circulating last week in Port-au-Prince. The Lord’s Prayer: "Our Doc who art in the National Palace for Life, hallowed be Thy name by present and future generations, Thy will be done at Port-au-Prince and in the provinces. Give us this day our new Haiti and never forgive the trespasses of the enemies of the Fatherland, who spit every day on our Country. Let them succumb to temptation and under the weight of their own venom. Deliver them not from any evil. Amen."
Dominican Republic
In the Dominican Republic, the people speak Spanish rather than Creole French. Its soil is more fertile, and its population density only half that of its smaller neighbor. What it shares is a common history of chaos. As in Haiti, bloody rebellions drove out the European governors, first the French in 1809, then the Spanish who had tried to reassert their dominion. No sooner had the Dominican Republic declared its independence in 1821 than it was invaded by neighboring Haiti, which occupied the country for 22 brutal years. The Haitians banned all foreign priests, severed papal relations, closed the University of Santo Domingo, and levied confiscatory taxes. Not until 1844, when Haiti was torn by one of its many civil wars, did the Dominican Republic finally break free?only to stagger
That is history that may or may not be exact. For a start there was no one called Christopher Columbus, it is actually an interpretation of his real name. His name was Cristóbal Colón and he was from Portugal, but he was thought to have been born in Italy. He sailed to the Americas from Palos de la Frontera in Spain and the venture was sponsored by Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain.
Life in those days was completely different to today, but having said that, the world is no safer now than it was then.
Your question is far too long!
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Sad history that will be forgotten once Tiger Woods leaves sex rehab and rejoins the golf tour.
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"Huge sigh"
They took paradise and made it into the hell hole that it is.
They raped and murdered their own people and they raped and destroyed their own land.
Now natural disaster after natural disaster is visited upon Haiti. Hurricanes and earthquakes, famine and disease.
It was a rotten hell hole before the earthquake. How can it be any better afterwards? In 200 years of independence have they not proved that they are incapable of self rule? Shall Haiti be a perpetual welfare state, dependent on foreign aid like an African nation?
I really, really hate to say it but……is there any nation with black rule that is not corrupt and starving? What a terrible thing to say. but is it true?
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My only opinion is that they are in a healthier state than Haiti. Other than that the bastardization of the Lords Prayer is outright evil and I don’t care for that at all………….
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