American Country Permits Era Mix and Match : Redecorating: Rooms with rural designs can combine objects from various periods and places.

For people who don’t want to be pinned down to a single style, American country is one of the best decorating choices.

Since it is an adaptation of rural designs to suit contemporary needs and not from a single period or place, American country is well adapted to today’s needs, says designer Raymond Waites.

Waites has written several books on American country style and has also designed reproduction collections of furniture, fabrics, wall coverings and accessories. He says that “the overriding point of American country is its spirit. You can mix periods and styles as long as the room maintains its casual quality.”

For example, he says it’s easily possible to put together a room that includes Shaker reproductions, primitive painted pieces and Victorian wicker. When decorating American country-style, look for rustic furniture in native American woods such as walnut, chestnut, maple and pine or painted pieces.

Stanley Hura is a designer who has created many American country room settings in which to display the Museum of American Folk Art reproduction collection by Lane. He offers these tips to a successful American country room:

Keep backgrounds simple and uncluttered. Choose clear colors and select accessories that are not too fussy. You can soften the feeling of the contemporary American country room with lace and floral fabrics. Or you can make the room more masculine with cowhide and American Indian motifs, he says.

Hura says that there are several ways to go with traditional American country rooms. First, decide whether you want to create a formal or a rustic setting.

If it’s formal--a style that suggests small-town America of the mid-19th Century--choose Victorian-style furniture such as adaptations of English and French pieces. Use area rugs, such as an Oriental or a needlepoint rug, on the floors. You can choose simple window treatments or more elaborate layered effects that combine a heavier fabric with a sheer undercurtain. Wallpaper the walls, making use of borders to take the place of architectural detailing that may be lacking.

A more primitive and rustic room is the result when you select twig furniture, rustic pine pieces or the newly popular arts and crafts style. Place rag rugs or hooked rugs on the floors. Walls can be simply whitewashed or stenciled. Rough textured fabrics of homespun cotton and linen are appropriate, and simple country pottery and tin spatter ware are suitable. Baskets of dried flowers, flowering potted plants and original or reproductions of primitive paintings are also in character.

Another variant of the American country look incorporates motifs from the American West, such as California mission furniture, ornate, yet rough-hewn Spanish or Mexican pieces, or German-American Biedermaier pieces. The color scheme comes from Indians blankets and the earth tones of the American West.

An advantage in furnishing American country style is that reproductions from virtually all the earlier periods are now available. Besides colonial and federal-style furniture, you’ll find reproductions of country pieces from the 19th Century as well as copies of Mission and Arts and Crafts style furniture.