Depending on your personal taste, you might love wooden features as much as I do. I think it can give a home a really natural look and adds a rustic feel to décor. However, unless you want to put lots of bonsai trees and tall plants in your house, it’s not easy to incorporate your love of nature in your interior design ideas.

That’s why I’ve come up with a few ideas on how you can do this – without making your property look like a jungle!

Bring Back Ornaments from Your Travels
My love of travelling allows me to combine a lot of my interests, and although you may not initially assume going on long-haul holidays does this, it enables me to express my character in my interior design plans. This is because you can pick up lots of knick knacks, pictures and ornaments from foreign countries, and I love bringing home lots of wooden features.

No matter where you go, you’re bound to find lots of carvings and picture frames made out of wood. I can’t tell you how many statues, masks and boxes I have from all over the world featured around my house. This is a great way to add a natural element to your property and it also gives you lots of things to talk about with guests when they compliment one of your findings. If you have items from lots of the countries you’ve visited, you’ll have several conversation starters to use with your friends.

Photo Credit: Flickr – Riz

Buy Wooden Furniture
Perhaps the most obvious way to add wooden objects in your home (apart from putting lots of small trees in your house, which is often not a suitable option!) is to buy new furniture. It can be easy these days to pick up inexpensive pieces for our home. However, if it’s authentic wooden features you’re looking for, you may have to expect to pay a higher rate to get good-quality wood.

Having said this, you don’t have to replace these items of furniture as often as you would metal, plastic or a lower-standard of wood because they are built to last. Therefore, you could see your oak dining table or mahogany bureau enduring many years.

Photo Credit: West Elm

Photo Credit: Pottery Barn

Install Wooden Floors
If you really want a rustic look to your house, I recommend installing wooden floors. These fit well in a manner of properties, from old Victorian houses, where wooden floor boards were typical at the time, to modern homes.

Photo Credit: Floortex Design

Those who are quite good at DIY might want to try rescuing the original wooden floor if you have one but I think it’s far easier to get new solid wood or engineered wood flooring fitted. This way, you don’t have to worry about any rotten or loose floor boards, as everything is brand new and looks smooth and stylish. You can choose from a variety of wood floors and have many options when it comes to color and style. You can even select ones that look aged to give your period property an authentic appearance. In fact, if it was me, I wouldn’t tell anyone your new floor wasn’t an original feature and I bet they wouldn’t be able to guess otherwise!

Photo Credit: West Elm

{Natasha Alatassi specializes in writing about home interiors and DIY on behalf of Ryder International.}