Creating a Farmhouse Look for your Home (Without Having to Buy a Cow)

Hello World!  Welcome Friends! We live in a thoroughly wonderful but often bamboozling age. Everything seems to be changing so fast. Businesses and even entire industries seem to rise and fall practically overnight. Technology moves at such a blistering pace that the moment we invest in one device it seems within a month to be replaced by a newer, sleeker sexier version of the same thing. Politics, the uncertainty of the economy and the environment are all increasingly scary issues. And in the face of a world that appears to grow more unsure of itself with every passing day, it’s an understandable impulse to want to escape from the fast paced modern world and into somewhere a little more traditional, a little more rustic and a little more timeless. Since your home is your sanctum, a place where you can leave the modern world and all its scary affectations at the door, it makes sense that the best way to add a sense of comforting timelessness to your life would be through your home decor.

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Nothing creates a timeless feel in the home more than a few farmhouse flourishes. But you needn’t buy a cow or a pig, or even a lot of new furniture to bring a hint of a farmhouse aesthetic’s rustic comfort to your home. Just follow these simple pointers…

Start from the outside

The perfect farmhouse look starts from the outside. Whether it’s applying some copper accents to your roofing, cladding your exterior with wood and stone, replacing your front door with a statement barn door or a repurposed, split farmhouse door.  Or simply adding a few well chosen accessories like a wooden rocking chair, a Navajo rug or a boot scraper to your porch, there are a range of ways in which you can bring some farmhouse style elegance to your exterior. Never underestimate the importance of lighting, either. A goose neck barn light is a great statement piece that not only makes your home more secure, it can really top off that farmhouse feel. Having a barn style light is not for you if you do not care about lighting your farm house. Fortunately, barn lights are highly customizable and available in a range of colors and finishes. Even if your home’s exterior or location don’t match the ideal, you can still create that quintessentially warm and welcoming look.

Keep your walls neutral

You might be tempted to lay the rustic look on with a trowel, incorporating wooden cladding and hanging moose’s heads but the secret to a farmhouse aesthetic is keeping your walls light, airy and neutral. Avoid the super dark and the super light and opt instead for soft beiges, creams and grays. It creates a calming effect while tying the rest of the room together and allowing statement pieces and accessories to pop. Although bright colors have been all the rage when it comes to wall decor over the past few years, with pastel and gelato shaded enjoying particular acclaim, this year’s interior design trends tend to favor more neutral colors and ombre walls anyway.

But don’t be afraid to build dimension on top

There’s a fine line between subtle and boring, and while farmhouse walls tend to traditionally be quite neutral, they’re also rich in texture and dimension. Incorporate wainscoting or beadboard into your walls. You might even want to use reclaimed wood shiplapping for a statement wall. A planked wall needn’t call attention to itself. It makes a great addition to a breakfast nook or can make your bathroom extra cozy.

Accessorize with wire baskets

Wire baskets are a simple way to add a farmhouse sensibility to your neutral walls and have a range of uses. You can use them to store potted plants, use them as a rack for magazines and newspapers or even keep soft accessories like cushions and pillows in them. In children’s rooms and nurseries they’re great for storing books while in a bedroom they can used to hold potted lavender which will help to lull you to sleep. The applications for wire baskets are virtually limitless.

Don’t buy new furniture. Always refinish and repurpose

As with any home remodel, the temptation may be to buy all new furniture, but this will only add waste and expense to what could potentially be a quick and easy refurbishment. Instead of buying brand new rustic furniture which has been artificially distressed, you can simply refinish or repurpose your existing furniture. Wooden furniture can be completely transformed by sanding it down and refinishing it or painting and then distressing it. Even the dowdiest piece of furniture can gain a new lease of life if you paint it to match the color scheme of your walls.

If possible, contact your local architectural salvage company to try and get some farmhouse accessories like old doors as these are fairly easy to integrate (simply follow this YouTube video on how to replace a door) and can add a genuine touch of rustic class to your home.

One of the worst things you can do in creating a farmhouse aesthetic is give in to the urge to take your business to the mall. All you will find there are mass manufactured pieces that will cheapen the unique and timeless theme of your decor.

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Say it with fixtures

Light is one of the most overlooked aspects of home decor. The right light can enhance a room’s decoration and accessories, while the wrong lighting can obscure or even dwarf them. Aside from the light sources themselves, the fixtures can have an easy to miss but highly potent effect on your decor. Swap out your existing fixtures for some farmhouse style lighting incorporating wooden chandeliers, metal light pendants and bead chandeliers to put the cherry on top of your farmhouse style cake.

Keeping your color scheme neutral, mixing the old and the new together and repurposing or reclaiming wherever you can will not only help you to create the perfect farmhouse aesthetic, they’ll also keep the project costs manageable and also do some good for the environment.

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