Primitive Ceiling Fan Ideas

Primitive ceiling fans come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Be sure to select the appropriate one for your home.

Primitive ceiling fans provide the finishing touches for well-designed country, folk or antique home decor. By following just a few simple design guidelines, you can display an appropriately fashioned ceiling fan for an affordable price. Here are a few ideas to get you started on this rustic and rewarding design endeavor!

Authentic antiques

Restore an antique ceiling fan for an elegant but rustic look.

Antique ceiling fans offer a beautifully distressed style, with the attractiveness of historical origin. According to vintagefans.com, electric ceiling fans manufactured in the United States as early as the 1890s can be fully restored to their original form and function. Some common materials found in an antique ceiling fan include stained wood, oxidized copper, iron, sanded glass and even cast iron. These raw materials compare better in lasting quality than today's ceiling fans made from plastic and medium-density fiber board. No doubt that's part of the primitive-design appeal. Purchasing or restoring an antique ceiling fan for your home provides a historic flare for your primitive design.

Country colors

Use a crackled paint treatment for a worn appearance.

For a more affordable and homespun application, get creative with your paintbrush. When using paint, incorporate natural earth tones for a true handcrafted appearance. Painted wood fans should showcase hues such as harvest gold, earthy clay, forest green and rustic barn red. Often, country looks feature painted images of farm scenes with roosters, horses and wildflowers. These decorative images should be kept to a minimum on ceiling fans, however, since they will likely not be as visible as when applied to furnishings. One of the most popular paint treatments for rustic design, crackled paint, allows adjacent colors to complement each other in a fabulous finish. Or instead of crackle painting the fan blades, apply a neutral tone-on-tone crackle treatment to the ceiling fan's glass bowl lighting fixture.

Accents of nature

Ceiling fans with leaf designs work well for a primitive look in mountain communities.

Be sure that your primitive ceiling fan is consistent with the home's overall design. In a mountainside log cabin that features carved bear statues and autumn leaf artwork, install a ceiling fan that features accents of pine cone and leaf shapes. Found on the ceiling fan blades or as part of the lighting fixture, these images of nature will seamlessly blend with your mountain home's interior. In one particular North Carolina mountain community, the neighborhood country club's dining lounge hosts a striking three-tiered chandelier made from oak leaf shapes in an iron material. Another club room boasts a lighting fixture made from deer horns, appealing to the region's popular sport of hunting. Both of these lighting designs can be incorporated into the ceiling fan design for a unique and dramatic country environment!

Tags: ceiling fans, lighting fixture, made from, antique ceiling, crackled paint, leaf shapes