The Ultimate Guide to Farmhouse Decorating Ideas
From farm to table, how to bring the farmhouse design aesthetic in your home.
This down-to-earth style is distinctly all-American. Nodding to its homegrown roots, a farmhouse home has a timeworn look, complete with old-school prints, distressed furnishings, and vintage finishing touches. Keep reading for all you need to know about farmhouse design and decoration.
What Is Farmhouse Style? The Basics
- Sturdy, time-tested furniture handcrafted from distressed woods and wrought iron.
- Color palettes with white, gray, cream, navy, and sage.
- Large, inviting, family style furniture creates a laid-back vibe.
- Open shelving showcases necessities and heirloom pieces.
- Old becomes new with the style's focus on upcycling and repurposing.
1. Use Your Architecture
In farmhouse design, the home's high-quality craftsmanship is always on display. Rugged beams, hardwood floors, built-in cabinets, ample windows, and shiplap (wide horizontal wood paneling) are standard. An open layout where the kitchen, living room, and dining space are all one allows for a unified space (and large family gatherings) with seamless transitions from room to room.
Farmhouses rely on a blend of comfortable neutrals to make for a classic base that amplifies light. Build muted earth tones such as slate, sage, and fawn off of paler shades of beige, gray, and white. Use textiles and plants to bring in accents of bright green, navy or cornflower blue, and lavender, but do so sparingly so as to not detract from the soft overall look.
To complete the farmhouse decorating look, pair light, rugged textiles with sturdy materials featuring aged finishes, such as wood and wrought iron. Light, unfinished woods (birch, oak, and pine) complement the neutral palette and introduce natural elements to the home. Deeper woods, like walnut and cherry, can add variety and depth to the design, but should be used sparingly. Wicker rattan furniture, left natural or painted, adds to the lived-in feel of a farmhouse living room or dining room.
Add breezy, low-maintenance fabrics like linen and cotton to your farmhouse decor ideas to lend softness and a relaxed feel to window dressings, seating, headboards, and more. Sofas are typically slipcovered for easy wash and wear care. Natural jute, sisal, burlap, or lightly colored, low-pile synthetic fiber rugs pad farmhouse floors. Striped cotton fabrics and vintage knits as throw pillows or draped across any chair or bed as throw blankets add casual, cozy detail.
Farmhouse kitchens and dining rooms are the heart of the home – they showcase the style's main tenet: function above all else. Choose beaded chandeliers and wicker or wood chairs over a large jute area rug to complete the look.
For farmhouse kitchen ideas, pick deep apron-front kitchen sinks, overhead task lighting, and large butcher-block islands are ideal for both for food prep accompanied by bar top seating make the home cook and entertainer's life easy. Painted wood cabinets adorned with vintage hardware and white subway tile backsplashes line the walls, while open shelving or glass front cabinets showcase antique dishware and other accents.
In the dining room, mismatched seating (benches, stools, and accent chairs) pulled up to a long distressed wood table creates a warm gathering spot for family and friends. Add some soft and rustic accents like an area rug or a metal chandelier for some finishing touches.
Repurposed goods are the ideal farmhouse decorations. Instead of throwing out old pottery, baskets, and wooden crates or rusting pitchers, cans, and buckets, reuse them – leave them looking a bit worn or paint them white and use them as planters, accent pieces, or storage bins. Old wine and milk bottles, well-worn books, and coffee cans look amazing displayed on exposed shelving and coffee tables. A farmhouse home is also the perfect place for vintage signs and antique fixtures and devices, so think before you discard!
When it comes to farmhouse decorating, light fixtures tend to be table lamps with white or off-white bases and unadorned white shades or chandeliers made of light wood or dark metal with little additional ornamentation. Candles perched atop simple bases make for the perfect farmhouse mood lighting.
Keep wall decor simple with black and white photography, pencil or charcoal artwork, framed vintage maps or dried plants and flowers, and mirrors with simple frames. If you want more color, opt for paintings of farm animals or flowers.
Tie your farmhouse living room or dining room together with natural centerpieces – vases of light green plants or flowers in blue hues not only freshen up the space, but they perfectly complement farmhouse furniture. Bursting hydrangeas or sprigs of fresh lavender and olive branches in round vases or bushes of herbs like sage and basil in terracotta pottery make for the perfect farmhouse final touches.
With these farmhouse decorating ideas, now you too can create the beautiful home of your dreams.
