Hi friends, I’m Kristin. Welcome back to Postbox Designs, an Interior E-Design company where I focus on Real Designs for Real Life. As an interior designer, wife, and Mom of three, I can’t help but thinking of practicality and durability AS WELL as beauty when designing rooms for my clients. And this is coming from a girl who is usually snacking on pita chips on her sofa while designing her client’s rooms…real life. If you are looking for “look-but-don’t-touch-rooms”, you are probably on the wrong blog!
And I’m also all about giving you the tools to make interior design less overwhelming and more practical. So I’m really excited to share this brand new freebie I created for you guys: “How to Create a Whole House Lighting Plan”. You can find out how to get it at the bottom of this post…
But first I want to tell you the story behind it.
Designing a Whole House at Once: Modern Farmhouse Style
This summer, a busy mama contacted me about helping her with the majority of her house at once. This lovely lady was B-U-S-Y: she worked full time, had a little one, and just bought a new house in the Washington DC area. She was juggling a million things at once and wanted help pulling together an entire house at once. And I can understand why she was overwhelmed…can you imagine trying to choose furniture, decor, lighting, and paint colors for an entire house (that you aren’t even living in) at all the same time?! She didn’t know where to start, and was stressed out about the whole idea.
We worked together and broke it down room-by-room, which made the whole process seem way less overwhelming. I always suggest starting with your most important room first, which is usually a Living Room or Family Room. Which is exactly what we did: we started with her Living Room. She had a few existing pieces to use, and wanted a Modern Farmhouse Living Room style. We started with what she had, then layered in Modern Farmhouse accessories, throw pillows, curtains, rugs, lamps, and small pieces of furniture.
But I also created some “Whole House” Mood Boards for her. One of them was a “Whole House Painting Guide” (which I’ll be sharing with you soon), as well as a “Whole House Lighting Plan”. With things such as paint colors, light fixtures, and flooring-you want to have a cohesive plan that works with your WHOLE house, not just each individual room. Which is what gave me the idea to create today’s “Whole House Lighting Plan” Design Freebie…because I thought you might be stuck on that too.
Modern Farmhouse Living Room
But first I wanted to share a peek of the Modern Farmhouse Living Room plan I custom designed for her. She started with my “Starter Plan” Room Package
and I created this design for her.
Working With Your Existing Living Room Furniture
Like a lot of my clients, she had some existing furniture she wanted to keep for her Living Room, and work some new pieces around it. She already owned a brown sectional sofa, so all we needed to do was layer on some Farmhouse accessories and small furniture pieces to create a polished, finished look.
I started with this gray patterned rug (#5) because it would help pull in the rest of the colors of her room, and this pattern will help hide any dirt and stains. Then I added this small distressed side table (#3) and two of these Ballard Designs upholstered X-benches (Item #4) to go across from her sectional sofa. These work as additional seating or footstools. One of the biggest ways you can update your Living Room is by throw pillows. These Etsy pillows are farmhouse inspired, but have a modern take to them (Items 10-14), all sticking with our neutral, muted color palette.
Finally, we added some simple Farmhouse decor items like these Magnolia vases (Item #8), faux fiddle fig (Item #6) and striped throw blanket (Item #7).
Modern Farmhouse Decor Accessories
As part of her Living Room, I helped her design some built-ins to go around her TV. When filling up open shelves, I like to leave about 50% of the shelves open, to allow for some negative space-this gives the eyes somewhere to “rest” and prevents your shelves from looking too cluttered. But I wanted to give her some ideas of items to add to her open shelves (Item #19) such as: 15A, 21, 23, 24, 25, and 26. All of these items are perfect Farmhouse additions: creamware, woven baskets, and distressed woods.
Modern Farmhouse Living Room Makeover
So here is a look at her final Modern Farmhouse Living Room Design! I also included a Floor Plan, step-by-step directions, Shopping List, and material samples inside her Postbox. After creating her designs, I packaged everything up into her Room-Inside-A-Box and mailed it right to her doorstep. She has everything she needs all in one place. She can order her entire custom designed room in an hour over a cup of coffee. Then let everything get delivered right to her house without ever leaving home.
I hope this can give you some ideas and inspiration for pulling together your own Modern Farmhouse Living Room!
Free “How to Create a Whole House Lighting Plan” Guide
For her Living Room I suggested using this metal ring chandelier (Item #2 on this Mood Board below), but I also helped her find lighting for her entire house. Once she had a Master Plan, she felt comfortable ordering all of the lighting she needed. But when it comes to choosing lighting for your house, you might be stuck on some of these questions:
How do you know what type of lighting to use?
How high to hang your lighting?
What size light fixture do you need?
Should all of your lighting have the same finish?
I want to help you answer all of these questions! Here is some advice for how to select your finish, type of light, and how to hang your light fixture in each room of your home:
Tips for Choosing the Right Fixtures for Each Room of your Home
TIP #1: When you are trying to select lighting to work through your entire house, you want a cohesive, consistent look without looking too “matchy-matchy”. I would recommend staying away from suites of matching lighting. Instead choose an overall style you want in your house. Think “modern”, “farmhouse”, “traditional”, “boho”, etc. and make sure every light fits within that overarching style.
TIP #2: Second, pick a color palette of 2-3 metals. Again, you want to break it up and not go with the exact same finish throughout your whole house. To create a more layered, custom look mix-and-match coordinating metals. In this case I stuck with a combination of bronzes, matte blacks, and champagne hues.
TIP #3: Stick with the right scale. If you have tall ceilings you are going to need a different type of lighting than standard height ceilings (8’ high). Additionally, depending on the space you might want a chandelier, a pendant, or a semi-flush light. You want to get the right scale light to go with your furniture or room size. Here are some basic dimensions to keep in mind:
Dining Room: Choose a chandelier that is between ½ to ¾ of the width of your table. Hang so the bottom of your light is approximately 30-32” over the top of the table.
Chandelier for a Large Room or a Room with High Ceilings: Take the square area of your room, and multiply it for the diameter of the light you should choose. For example: For a 18’ wide x 14’ wide room: 18×14=32. So you should find a chandelier that is approximately 32” in diameter. When you have high ceilings, the bottom of your light fixture should be approximately 7’ above the floor.
When you have 8’ high ceilings in a medium sized room (such as a foyer, hallway, bedroom, bathroom, laundry room, etc.): Look for a “flush” or “semi-flush” light, you want the bottom of your light to be no lower than 7’ from the floor.
Kitchen Pendant Lighting: For larger pendants you can typically use two pendants over a kitchen island. For smaller pendants, three fixtures is fairly typical. If using three lights, center them in “thirds” over your island. You can also use a pendant style light over a kitchen sink (NOTE: I wouldn’t match your kitchen sink light to your island lights-choose something different!) Hang your pendants 28”-34” over your countertop.
Grab Your Free “Whole House Lighting Plan”
You can grab this Guide + the Shopping List for everything you see here in my FREE RESOURCE LIBRARY
When you sign up for my Free Resource Library, you get 24/7 free access to all of the Design Freebies inside (plus I’m always adding to it). You will get an email with the link and password to access this and all of the other Design Goodies inside!
Already a member? Just log in with your password HERE
Exciting News Coming Up at Postbox Designs
Whether you are brand new here at Postbox Designs, or we have been friends for awhile, you are going to want to stick around! Starting this Thursday, I’m participating in the bi-annual One Room Challenge, where I’ll be taking a room in my very own house and transforming it over six weeks. So if you want a sneak peek into the inner workings in my house…and see what room I’m tackling….stay tuned! If you don’t want to miss a week, you can sign up HERE to get each week’s challenge delivered right to your inbox!
I’ll see you back here Thursday,
Kristin
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