Gone Farmhouse Yet?
This decorating, design, and even architectural style is in full swing -- a fresh take on a old idea. A fresh look at a traditional, nostalgic, yet simplified version of country. It's an update on the Craftsman look with a more neutral color palette, lots more grays, not so much the greens, and lots and lots of shiplap. Move over bead board.
So, have you gone farmhouse yet? Answer these 10 questions to find out!
1. Have you placed shiplap anyway in your house? Shiplap, traditionally understood, are boards that have been milled with a rabbet joint, so that they can be stacked like siding. However, today the term gets used loosely to describe boards placed horizontally on a wall (even on that famous tv show!) Where can you put it in your house? Oh just about anywhere! Entryways, mud-rooms, dining rooms, bedrooms, kitchens, fireplaces, bathrooms, powder rooms, anywhere.
2. Do you have a barn door? Also extremely versatile, barn doors provide a lot of style in a traditionally low impact space -- a door. The sliding track & accompanying hardware put the "barn" in the door, and nowaday you can obtain a door in a wide variety of styles beyond the traditional 'Z' plank styling.
3. Another traditional farmhouse wainscotting look -- do you have board & batten anywhere in your house. This arrangement has spaced vertical boards sometimes narrow or wide, with horizontal battens. They can be traditional chair rail height or extend all the way up the wall. Again, this is such a versatile piece of styling that it can appear anywhere in your house, from dining room, bedroom, to home office.
4. Do you have a farmhouse table? Planks joined together and placed on a variety of base styles seems to be the only requirement. Finish determines how "rustic" your table is. Reclaimed barn wood? Loved & worn table that has existed for more than a century with a soft and shiny surface? There is even such a thing as an "elegant" farmhouse table with turned legs or a pedestal silhouette, and upholstered dining chairs. There are many ways to put a little farm into your kitchen or dining room. If you have such a table, you might be living in a farmhouse.
5. Speaking of reclaimed wood, the farmhouse style seems to be all about reusing previously useful pieces of wood decoratively, preferably with age & patina in full glow. So, have you got an old window or shutter hanging on a wall or resting on your mantle? Or perhaps a door hanging on a wall going nowhere? Have you got what appears to be a board salvaged from the side of a 1880's barn hanging in a bedroom or bathroom with hand lettering? Then you just may have gone farmhouse!
6. Pallets are another hot commodity in the farmhouse market. Do you have a piece of furniture made from a pallet that you found in a work dumpster? Or salvaged from a recent renovation project? Have you then painstakingly transformed it into a shelf, bench, coffee table or coffee cup holder? Then, you've definitely gone farmhouse!
7. Have you removed all of the shades on your lighting fixtures or purchased new lights with no shades provided? Bare bulbs, or glassless lanterns and shadeless chandeliers all mean you've gone farmhouse.
8. Chalk paint -- have you used Annie Sloane's chalk paint to refinish, repaint, or repurpose a piece of furniture? Then you are definitely going farmhouse. Bonus points if you've applied chalk paint to any of the above mentioned items (pallets, windows, doors, farmhouse tables, etc.)
9. Have you replaced your blue, red, checked, floral, chenille or lazyboy sofa with a white sofa? Apparently, the nation's hardest working homes are also home to the cleanest children and adults as they rest, eat, and read/study/play upon these pristine surfaces. More power to you, if you've gone white on the couch--you are true farmhouse material.
10. Last, but not least, if you raise chickens, have a garden that grows more than just tomatoes, have a swing on your front porch, a row of muddy boots next to a boot scraper on the back porch, and can look out of your front door and see nothing but your own land, then hands down, you really have gone farmhouse!
All kidding aside, our team loves to apply their craftsmanship to making your home beautiful and dreams into reality. So, if you've only been dreaming about that farmhouse style, we'd love to get in touch!