The understated, neutral style with plenty of texture for a laidback lifestyle and simple life.
As promised in my last post, today I start the series “Seven Interior Design Styles for 2020” presented in Pre-Styled mood boards with hand-picked items from current collections and still available to purchase online. The first design I will talk about is the Modern Farmhouse Style.
One of my favourite styles because of the simple, understated, neutral colour scheme and amazing texture. The farmhouse style is inspired by the countryside homes and farms itself. The key elements for this style are:
Neutral colour scheme, mostly white, beige and all the variations in between and beyond.
Aged wood furniture with a natural patina, distressing, wear and tear from over the years of use.
Vintage elements on accessories can be incorporated to create interest and also to give a more personal touch.
Amazing selection of texture on cushion, rugs, curtains, wood, metal, plants, baskets, chicken wire, terracotta, etc
To bring up to date add an item of new retro-style furniture to give it a modern touch.
When you are designing a space you always have to keep in mind your budget, purpose of the space and durability, how long you wish to have that style in your home. If you want to add some trend items into your scheme I recommend sticking with inexpensive items in accessories, like a cushion, throws (blankets), pictures, even paint colour and wallpaper can be replaced after a year or two. What you probably don’t want to replace are more expensive items like the main furniture in a living room, sofa, armchairs, coffee and side tables, even lighting. For those items, if your budget allows I always recommend buying the best you can afford because you will have a piece of furniture for many years to come, decades even.
Inspired by Joanna Gaines farmhouse living room
As inspiration for this design scheme I have the Joanna Gaines farmhouse living room, picture on the left, where you can see a very neutral colour scheme with white, black and beiges, but she incorporated a variety of texture to give the scheme an interesting look.
Looking at the Mood board I’ve created for this style, let’s start with the sofa, with a neutral beige/cream colour, and natural fabric, linen or cotton, would be the best choice. If the sofa has a removable cover that can be machine washed even better to make life easier and practical. Prices on the sofa can vary from high-end to a budget price. Again, if you want a sofa to last for 10 or 20 years, keep quality in mind.
On my examples below you can see 3 sofas with similar shapes and sizes. All 3 sofas are neutral in colour, 3 seats in size and can be dressed up and down with cushions and blankets to change the decor. This is a perfect sofa for the farmhouse look because is also comfortable and robust in scale.
Top left: OKA £2895, top right sofa.com £1940 and bottom Ikea £350
When you design a room is always good to start with the main piece of furniture and then adding the rest around it, armchair, rug, side and coffee tables, lighting and decor accessories.For the armchair, I’ve chosen a retro-style from Made in premium leather finishing that brings in the vintage feel to the scheme. Coffee and side tables are both made of solid wood pine with rustic finishing, both from The Pallet House, the coffee table has a metal frame that adds to the rustic feel too.
For the rug, 100% cotton handmade braided with stripes in white and dark grey and fringe, the rug creates the boundary for the seating area and ties the scheme together.
But the design is not done yet without the soft furnishing and decor accessories the room would be just a blah room, with no interesting aspects, no focal point. For the cushions, throw and curtain I’ve chosen items made of cotton or linen with different texture in each of them. Those cushions in terracotta colour are just enough to give a pop of the right colour to the scheme, all from Zara Homes. The basket/tray, also from Zara, brings in the texture of the rattan and helps keeps the coffee table clutter-free by gatherings magazines, books, remotes, etc.
In addition to those items, for this scheme, I have handpicked two very unique and specific items that are very similar to the ones on the Joanna Gaines design. The first one is a huge wall clock. Joanna’s clock is just for decor because it doesn’t have the handles but it’s the focal point in the living room. The clock that I’ve chosen it’s also huge with 1.20 m in diameter with a skeleton metal frame in an antique brown finishing and the bonus? It’s a working clock.
The second item is the large table lamp that features a bold edgy industrial look sure to be a show stopper. With an adjustable stem and circular shade, this lamp has an old fashioned yet quirky and timeless style. The lamp is 74cm high and has a black and brass finishing and is very similar to Joanna’s lamp. Both clock and lamp are from my own shop, The Pallet House.
The colour scheme in this style is very neutral, but nothing boring about it. You can see the repetition of black, white and beige in many different items and different texture. We can see the black scattered around the room on the armchair, table lamp, wall clock, ceiling lighting or fan, the vintage metal cabinet in the corner, the frame on the art and on the vintage street signs. On my design, I’ve also have added curtains, with a black industrial pipe rod, as most of us live in city-dwellings and not on an actual farm like Joanna and her family, we will definitely need curtains to give us privacy from neighbouring homes.
The shiplap on the wall is a trademark on Joanna’s design and it’s a key element for the farmhouse style. Even if you don’t live in farm or old home and probably shiplap is not something that you will uncover in a British home renovation, but you can still create the same look by installing shiplap cladding made of MDF with a tongue and groove interlocking that will make installation easier and practical. You can create one wall in your living room with the shiplap and then paint the others with the same paint colour to create this white canvas for all the farmhouse texture and feel.
The best flooring for a farmhouse design is wood flooring. If you have original wood flooring in your home you are good to go and ready to install the shiplap, paint the walls and then bring in all the furnishings. Now, if you don’t have wood flooring in your home and you have the budget for it, I recommend that you install, or have installed for you because the wood flooring is also a key element on the farmhouse style. There is an array of flooring options these days, from laminate to hardwood, to engineered, to luxury vinyl, all with the look and feel of wood, and the prices range from budget to high-end, to whatever pocket size you have.
Left: Engineered from UK Flooring Direct, middle: Luxury vinyl from Karndean and right is solid wood
One of the key elements of this style is the vintage and aged look, the distressing, wear and tear of an old piece, so to bring that into the scheme nothing is better than an original vintage item. Joanna has in her living room the old huge clock face, the street signs and the black metal cabinet in the corner. Original vintage items are unique, you usually won’t find two exactly the same, so a vintage item always brings some personal touch to the room and that is what makes your space unique.
A great way to bring the vintage look to a room without spending too much in original vintage pieces is to search vintage markets, thrift stores, eBay, Preloved and even the Facebook Marketplace for used furniture that you can incorporate into your space. Pieces that have a vintage look, but are not exactly valuable. The coffee and side table that I’ve suggested in the beginning could be replaced with hand-me-down from family and friends or searched on Freecycle for pieces that you could refinish and reuse and its also sustainable.
left: Vintage metal filling cabinet, middle: Vintage street sign and left: vintage upcycled cabinet
So, have I got you excited to work on your living room now? If you need help with space planning, colour scheme and selection of items and materials, I have 3 Interior e-Design packs that offer you a design pack with everything you need to start redecorating your room on your own but with the backing of an Interior Designer. You can find out more by clicking on the menu above Design Service.
That’s all for today, and next week I will come back with the Industrial Style and the key elements to creating the New York Loft style that everybody and so into these days.
