Farmhouse style is easy to create


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Are you enamored by the pristine glow of painted or whitewashed pickets, porch rails, and poultry sheds?  If yes, then Farmhouse Style Cottage is your shabby chic style. 
(There are 4 personality style: Romantic, Dramatic, Classic, Casual. Normally people who fall in love with such home style tend to be personalty style type: Casual. (Please refer to my previous posting for more info on this topic).

if you love this style, even if your house is in suburbia you can set the stage for your cottage farmhouse style home, with these simple tips.

How do you accomplish that?

Here is the recipe: start by pairing white with timeless blue or  reds. Keep window treatment and floors to a very minimum  fuss and add gingham inspired checks and quilts throughout.  

For a very authentic farmhouse feeling, you can implement the trick of treating the walls (not the whole house, of course, but even two rooms will do: kitchen and family room) to accomplish an authentic feeling.
On the walls you can add  wood planks  or ordinary paneling applied either horizontal or vertically that can be bought very inexpensively at any Lowes or Home Depot and then primed and painted with washed white or ivory white.

You can acquire home accessories on a shoe string by attending local flea markets,  thrift shops and home sales. For instance if you pick up a wood bench you can then paint it in a distress finish with washed white paint.  and this inexpensive item can be used as a focal point in your hallway with a throw quilt over it.

If you are planning on changing your floors, (at least in the kitchen and in the family room) then the best choice will be  to install oak or pine wood floors or even consider realistic laminate flooring that mimics natural or stained pine. Today there is a wide choice of colors and finishes that even offer  knots for an authentic look.




Home Accessories
Nostalgia is the key element to accomplish a farmhouse style cottage.
This style can make your flea market shopping become a new experience.

Keep in mind to spot for timeworn pieces with  a nostalgic theme to it.
Old watering cans &  milk bottles can be transformed in beautiful flower vases.  Milk
barrels can become umbrella stands, old attic windows (in the shape of fan) can become a beautiful mirror when you take off  the cracked glass and replace it with a piece of mirror.  An old door can become a treasured  dinette table top when tapped with a piece of glass and added legs to it (you can pick up legs of any sizes at any lumber supply). Old chairs when tapped with tie-back cushions can be transformed in mood setting heirloom.

Straw hats can be used as art work to decorate a wall in your hallway.

Antique wrought iron gates can become the top of any coffee table when topped with a glass top and welded with 4 steel rods  as legs. You can find these at any yard sale or hardware supply and for very little cost, then you can weld them by using a local body shop car.

For the kitchen you can create interest on the ceiling by attaching nostalgic pots holder with rosters motif and copper accessories throughout.    

If you are a Natural Personality with a creative-artistic touch, then you can have fun  with this Farmhouse Style cottage by adding a brush of whimsy to your decorating.

Painted furnishings make decorating fun and interesting with imagery that are down-home and downright   sophisticated. If you have a special image in mind, you can make your vision become a delight for any eye to enjoy by using stencils or by decoupaging (if you are a beginner) or you can hand paint if you are artistically skilled.

Limit yourself to one major painted piece per room (too much becomes very confusing and distracting).

The most important thing here is to have fun and to create a very casual ambiance that will make you feel as if you have stepped into your mountain cottage retreat.

Blessings.
- Cristina-