Hi Friends! I’m so excited to share this Farmhouse Living Room project with you today! Last year I was contacted by the sweetest Mom whose family was building a brand new custom home in Colorado. She had made a lot of decisions on the build and was now ready to start thinking about the inside. And she was ssmart to think about decorating her house so far ahead of time. Because of that, we had months to create the perfect designs for almost her entire home-she didn’t feel rushed or overwhelmed, we could work through it all at her pace. Now isn’t THAT a nice feeling?!
With Postbox Designs I always create two different mix-and-match designs for my clients. And today I’m going to share both versions of the same Living Room.
Take a look…which would you choose? Or would you do a mix of both?
Version #1: Farmhouse Living Room Design
I always recommend putting the majority of your budget into well made, neutral pieces that will last a long time. Then pepper in less expensive decor details such as pillows and accessories, as those are easy to swap out in the future for a new look. I anchored their Farmhouse Living Room design with this Pottery Barn sofa cloaked in a Performance fabric (so it should hold up like a champ to her little ones). This oversized, weathered coffee table, their existing Pottery Barn leather chair, and a tufted gray armchair (see below Mood Board) created the main pieces in the Living Room. I’m also a huge fan of leather furniture with little kids, plus it beautifully works into a Modern Farmhouse decor.
We layered in white and blue pillows with Farmhouse fabrics, and some inexpensive decor items from places such as Target’s ‘Hearth and Hand’.
Farmhouse Living Room Furniture Ideas
Every design I create is totally custom and for the most part I rarely repeat items in my different client designers. However, I do have my favorites that I can’t help but using again and again because of how well they work into the designs. And one of them is this inexpensive rustic wood console table from World Market (#14). It is long and skinny, which means it works perfectly behind a sofa and can work into so many styles: Farmhouse, Cottage, Traditional, Coastal…this piece is a gem. After using it in several client’s homes, I finally purchased it for myself!
Other Farmhouse decor items like these rustic curtain rods, industrial metal bins, rustic dough bowl, ticking stripe fabric, and pure white curtains keep the Fixer Upper style look in this Living Room makeover.
Farmhouse Living Room Artwork
I always have my clients fill out a Design & Budget Questionnaire so I can get to know them and their style. And my client did have a request of “no bold artwork” in her room. So instead we found some neutral simple pieces of artwork that still add a lot of charm and interest to the room. I recommend creating a grid of these black and white botanical prints (Item #19A) on her blank wall. And this vintage style map of their town blown up as an oversized print would look great over built-ins or her fireplace. Flanking her map artwork with these farmhouse metal sconces will also create a custom look for them.
How to Design a Farmhouse Living Room
The Farmhouse style is know by it’s neutral color palette (whites, tans, beiges, grays, and whites) and distressed, weathered pieces of furniture. Adding in elements such as galvanized metal (such as this tray and corrugated vases) and pops of black (such as these wood houses) also work well with this style. And finally, picking the right fabrics makes all of the difference to turn your Living Room into a Farmhouse beauty! You can’t go wrong with stripes, plaids, grain sack, or woven fabrics. This is also a great place to add in some subdued colors-I love adding in pops of Navy into this otherwise neutral color scheme.
Version #2: Farmhouse Living Room Design
After I created the first design for my client, I sent everything to her to get her feedback and thoughts. I used all of their feedback to create a totally different, second Farmhouse Living Room. While she loved the first design, my client wanted to see a sectional sofa and less navy accents in this second Living Room design.
No problem!
This Pottery Barn sectional sofa will give the entire family a place to snuggle up on movie nights, and I still selected a “Performance” fabric for their new sofa. I selected my three favorite fabric options and included these in her Postbox (as well as all of her paint and other upholstery samples). We kept in the coffee table she loved, but added in totally different Farmhouse accessories. In this version her coffee table can have this rustic Target tray and galvanized vases full of greenery. These vintage looking patent prints stick with the same black and white art theme for all decor. Then, we layered the room with multiple neutral Farmhouse pillows on her furniture. To keep the room looking interesting with such a subdued color palette, you want to use multiple patterns and textures-dots, stripes, and chambray all work well together.
And in this version, adding a farmhouse console table behind the sofa provides a clear barrier between this Living Room and the adjacent Kitchen in their open concept floor plan. When you are dealing with an open floor plan, you want to use furniture to help define each space. And now they won’t have to stare at the back of their sofa, but a beautiful table filled with decor items.
Farmhouse Living Room Decor Accessories
When you have an open floor plan, I always suggest keeping the same flooring, wall color, and wall treatments through most of the open rooms. In this case I recommended simple white cotton Target curtains paired up with rustic bamboo roller shades for all of their windows. We played around with some other window treatments in other rooms, but keeping this same look will make all of the rooms flow into each other and seem even larger.
A rug can be one of the most expensive things you purchase for your Living Room. But if you have young kids at home like this Mom (and like myself), I usually encourage you NOT to invest in an uber expensive rug at this stage in life. Rugs get a lot of wear and tear…and graham cracker crumbs and sippy cup spills…Instead I recommend an inexpensive rug for the next few years, then you can eventually upgrade. I’m a huge fan of this chunky woven sisal rug from Amazon. I have it in my own home-it is soft, durable, and under $200 for a large area rug. And a sisal or jute rug is always a winner for a Farmhouse Living Room design!
Finally, we incorporated a lot of black accents such as these metal farmhouse sconces, Hearth and Hand houses, rustic-meets-formal chandelier, and bronze rustic curtain rods. These pops of black help when you are working with a very light color palette.
Modern Farmhouse Living Room Design
And here it is-the entire Version #2 of my client’s Farmhouse Living Room design! I can’t begin to tell you how much fun I had working with her on this room, and multiple other rooms in her beautiful home. I’ll be sharing more about this beautiful Colorado home in the future!
Want more Farmhouse Design Ideas?
Inside my Free Resource Library you can find tons of Free Design Guides, Worksheets, Mood Boards, Shopping Lists and more! And while there are many design styles in there, you can find some Farmhouse gems like this Farmhouse Bathroom plus Laundry Rooms, Living Rooms, and more. You can sign up to access it all in my FREE RESOURCE LIBRARY.
Plus my subscribers get $50 off their first Postbox Project-this is the only place you can find this discount!
Already a member? You can log in right HERE
Still have questions? You can always email me at kristin@postboxdesigns.com and we can chat all about your project!
Kristin
Charlene says
Those botanical prints are gorgeous! Really subtle but lovely
PostboxDesigns says
I loved them too! My client didn’t want any bold artwork, and you are right-they are subtle, but really pretty! Thanks for checking it out!