Home Tree Atlas: Home Decor Ideas and Mood Boards

Farmhouse Living Room Ideas, How To Create The Look

This post is going to go over a range of different farmhouse living room ideas and design tips, to help you transform your space. You’ll find ideas from what color palette to use, to how to style your windows.

The Color of a Farmhouse Living Room

A farmhouse color palette is usually made up of white, cream, and wooden tones. From the pictures in the mood board above, you can see that most of the farmhouse living rooms have their walls painted white. And it is through the fabric, furniture, and decor pieces where the creams and wooden tones are infused.

Seating and Furniture Design

A neutral (white, or cream) colored couch would be the way to go. There is also the bolder option of a plaid or striped couch style, seen in picture (8).

See if you can get a couch, or a couch cover with pleated or ruffled skirting (the bottom part of the fabric covering the couch (8)).

If you go with neutral colored seating, you can easily add the farmhouse style to it through the pillows. Choose pillows that have burlap, plaid, or ticking (striped) fabric. And how about adding a plaid throw blanket into the mix, just like the one covering the chair in picture (6).

Some other farmhouse furniture ideas include:

Using chic wingback chairs (6)
Simple rustic wooden ones (3)
Or how about a good old fashion wooden rocking chair

Tying the Room Together With a Coffee Table

To tie your farmhouse living room together, you’re going to need a coffee table with the right style. Go with a bare wooden one, or a wooden one painted in white. The living room in picture (4) has a coffee table with a wooden top and a white painted base.

Or how about the covered wooden laundry bucket being used as a coffee table in the living room in picture (3).

Farmhouse Style Storage Ideas

The pieces you use for your living room storage can also act as decor items:

Go with wicker hampers, or wicker baskets to store things out on open shelves or under the coffee table (4)
Galvanized buckets can be used to store magazines, throw blankets, or firewood
Have a look at my other post for creative ideas on how to store firewood: A Crackling Fire: Indoor Firewood Storage Ideas
A rustic ladder can be used to hang up blankets or even magazines
While a wooden trunk or chest can be used for storage, or as a side table (1) or a coffee table
And for more storage ideas and pictures, have a look at my post here: Farmhouse Storage and Organization Ideas

Window Treatment Ideas

Here are some ways to style the windows in your farmhouse living room.

For the curtains, go with plaid, burlap, or ticking style fabric. And see if you can get them pleated. And for the curtain rod, a cast iron one would contrast well with a light colored curtain fabric. Cast iron tiebacks would look good, or leather ones.

An alternative would be to go with wooden shutters, which would add a rustic touch to the room.

And the window frame itself. Have a look at picture (5) and you can see that it has been decorated with trim. This is the standard window frame style in a farmhouse.

Here are some other farmhouse posts to get more ideas form:

image credits 1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8

May 25, 2016 in Farmhouse Design, Living Room

Design and Decor Guide: Farmhouse Bathroom Ideas

When it comes to designing a bathroom there are a few main areas to focus on. In this post I go over farmhouse bathroom ideas that will help you transform your space. I go over the vanity area which is the main focal point of the bathroom, there is lighting, and then a few other design ideas which include window treatment and storage ideas.

Vanity Design Ideas

Here are all the design elements you need to create a farmhouse bathroom vanity:

The Sink: The first thing to tackle will be the sink. The go to choice is a white porcelain tub sink, just like the ones in the bathrooms in pictures (3) (4) and (7). You won’t see many built in vanities in a farmhouse bathroom, since there is generally more space in the room for more free standing counters. The sink will usually be on top of a free standing vanity (3) (4). Or the sink can even be built into the vanity table just like in picture (2).

An alternative to a porcelain sink, is a hand hammered copper tub sink, seen in picture (5).

Faucets: Go with dark metal faucets – such as cast iron, or dark brass or bronze.

The Mirror: A circular mirror in a wooden frame is a popular choice for a farmhouse bathroom.

Extras: If you have space, freshen up the vanity area by adding some plants. And how about adding a soap holder like the porcelain one in picture (3) or the metal one in picture (5).

Farmhouse Style Lighting

There are a few lighting styles to choose from when designing a farmhouse style bathroom. You have the more rustic barn lights, like the gooseneck wall lights seen in pictures (6) and (7). Or there are more classic glass lantern style lights, seen in picture (4). You can find barn style lighting at Barn Light Electric.

Design Elements and Simple Decor Ideas

Window Treatments: Farmhouses usually have a traditional window frame that you can see in picture (6) and this can be created by adding trim around the window. You can also go with wooden (or white painted) shutters.

Beadboard: For a classic farmhouse look, see if you can infuse beadboards into your bathroom design. These can be used as wainscoting (5) (9), for the whole wall (3) (7) (8), or used for the ceiling (6).

Storage Ideas: In a farmhouse you will usually see items stored out in the open, just like the open shelves in picture (8). Since everything is out on display, this means that these items also act as decor pieces. So you’ll want to make sure you have good looking pieces. Have matching wicker baskets, glass jars, and matching towels. You could also use an old rustic ladder to hang up towels (9). Or a vintage metal cart can be used as storage – seen in picture (3).

Here are some other farmhouse posts to get more ideas from:

image credits 1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9

May 16, 2016 in Bathroom, Farmhouse Design

Making The Space My Own: 7 Dream Living Room Makeover Ideas

I was asked what my dream living room space would look like, and how I would remodel the space. This post covers the 7 main ideas I would infuse into the room, ranging from a reading nook to a better alternative for a flat screen TV. None of these ideas are far fetched. And a thank you to the good people over at Laurel & Wolf for the challenge.

1. Getting Rid Of The TV (For a Better Option)

The first thing I would do in a living room makeover is to find a way to get rid of the TV. And the best way to do this is to fit a shelf above the couch and use a projector. Not only does this save space in your living room (since you don’t need a media console anymore), it removes a big flat black box from your wall. Creating a cleaner more minimalist looking living room space.

And the best budget home projector out there right now is the Acer H5380BD. While the Sony VPLHW40ES is the best in class when it comes to the more expensive projectors.

2. Upgrading the Lighting

The living room can be used for movie nights, or it can be a nice reading space. Every now and again it can play host for a small get together. This means the living room needs to have the right lighting to set the mood for each occasion.

I would have my ceiling fitted with recessed lights as these create a clean and modern looking room. And these lights will be hooked up to a dimmer switch, giving me full control over the lighting.

The key to great lighting is to not rely on one type of light fixture. You want to mix it up to create different layers and lighting effects. A table lamp and a floor lamp would be a good addition. Having a floor lamp by the couch adds more light to the area when reading.

3. Bathing In Daytime Sunshine

During the day the living room should be bathed in natural light. There are some design tricks that help maximize the amount of sunlight that comes in, and helps make the space feel larger.

The curtain rod needs to be quite a bit wider than the window. When the curtains are open, they should not be blocking any of the window.

The curtain rod should also be hung up as high as possible. And the curtains should be long enough to come down to about an inch or two above the ground. It doesn’t matter if the windows are not as tall as the curtains. Having tall curtains makes a living room feel larger.

Playing with fabric is another way to make the space feel larger. Vertical stripes will make the living room feel taller, while horizontal stripes makes the space feel wider. Or getting curtains that blend closely with the wall color creates a uniformed look in the room (white curtains with white walls), again making it feel like a larger space.

And if you want to bring in as much daylight as possible, but need to cover the windows for privacy, then use a double curtain rod with sheers.

4. The Right Look: A Scandinavian Design Style

This living room is going to have a clean and minimalist Scandinavian style to it. This means having a white base (white walls), and decorating the space in neutral tones (off white, and different shades of greys).

That might sound a bit boring, but the beauty of this style lies in adding subtle textures and patterns – just like the grey couch and black and white area rug in the picture above. Fabrics for the couch, pillows, and area rugs will have a subtle texture or pattern to them (again in a neutral color).

Warmth is brought into the living room through the use of natural materials. Wooden bowls, wooden storage pieces, or wooden features on pieces of furniture (legs, arm rests) bring in shades of brown. While plants bring in green tones.

5. Adding a Touch of Vintage Design

Something that I always appreciate in a living room, and brings a lot of character into the space, is crown molding. Now this won’t be you standard crown molding. This is going to be the old school antique, decorative crown molding just like the molding seen in picture (3).

6. Creating a Gallery Wall

The decor in the room will be kept to a minimum. It will mostly be plants and wooden pieces. But there will be one gallery wall with a few decorative framed pieces (maybe even including some photographs of my own) (4) (5).

7. Where is the Reading Nook?

Tucked away in a corner, or by the window, will be a reading nook. Most likely in the form of Papasan chair, or if there is space a hammock or day bed (6). With a book shelf of books to close in and seclude the space.

Here are some other living room posts for more ideas:

image credits 1/2/3/4/5/6

May 11, 2016 in Living Room

4 Ways to Maximize Space In a Small Home Office: Ideas and Design Tricks

There is always a way to fit in a home office space. Have you seen a home office fitted into a closet? Did you know that using a mirror can help make a space feel larger?

Here are small home office ideas that will help you create a great space to work in.

1. Creative Locations For Your Home Office Space

If you have a small room in mind for your home office, then you can skip this part. Here are just some creative ways you can fit a home office into your home:

See if you can clear out a closet that you don’t really need. This might sound strange, but a closet is a pretty effective way of creating a home office. You can check out the post I wrote on how to do this here: Creating a Workspace at Home: Closet Office Ideas
The bedroom is not the best place to have a home office if you can avoid it. You want your bedroom to be a relaxing, stress free space. And this is hard to do with your work on a desk nearby. But there are some ways to get around this. For example you could create a DIY room divider (use curtains, or a bookshelf) to hide the home office space when you are done for the day. Have a look at my post here for more bedroom home office ideas: Bedroom Home Office Ideas, Tips, and Designs.
And for ideas on how to create a home office in the basement, have a look at my post here: Ideas for Turning a Basement Space Into a Home Office

2. Creating Desk Space

The desk is the first thing to tackle in a small home office. Depending on your home office layout, you might need a corner L shaped desk, a thin desk, or a fold up desk. You might get lucky and be able to buy the right size/shaped desk at somewhere like IKEA. Or you might need to get all DIY, and build your own desk to make the most use of your small space.

DIYing your own desk doesn’t have to be a complicated and grand endevour. You simply need the right sized table top, and a way to prop it up. Most hardware stores (like Home Depot) will cut a sheet of plywood to your custom measurements. An old door, nailing pallet boards, or reclaimed wood can also be used as a tabletop. An old surfboard also works.

For more ideas and pictures, have a look at my post here: DIY Desk Ideas

When it comes to the legs of the desk, you could go with hairpin legs from Amazon or desk legs from IKEA. You could also build your own out of 2x4s. Or how about getting two draw units, or small filing cabinets that you could use as a base for your desk.

3. Design Tricks to Make Your Home Office Space Feel Larger.

Color Choice: Painting and decorating your home office with light colors will make your home office feel larger. Go with white, mint, or light grey.

Then again if you want to create a cozy feeling home office, look for a dark color to decorate your space.

Color Style Guide: Black Home Office Ideas

Lighting: You’ll want to have your small home office space well lit. Try to have all of the corners in the room brightly lit, as this will make the space feel larger. A modern home office design will use recessed lights, as these are fitted into the ceiling hiding the light fixtures.

If you don’t plan on doing any remodeling, just make sure you have a bright desk lamp. If you are really limited on space, you can find desk lamps that clamp to the desk freeing up desktop space (you can get one in the Amazon window above).

And add some floor lamps if you have space, if not put another lamp on a shelf.

Mirror and Glossy Surfaces: See if you can hang up a mirror in your small home office. A mirror makes a space feel larger because not only does it create the illusion of more space, but the light bounces off of it making the room feel larger.

The same applies to using glossy surfaces. If you have cabinets, repaint them with glossy paint. Or if you are getting a desk, look for a top with a glossy surface. Or better yet, use glass – as this also makes a space feel larger.

One Large Decor Piece: In a home office, it is ideal to have a mini gallery wall of inspirational framed art and design pieces. But if you really want to make the room feel more spacious, it is best to hang up one large framed piece – as this creates a less cluttered and more streamlined look.

4. Storage Ideas For a Small Home Office

When it comes to storage for small rooms, you’ll want to make the most use of your walls. This means having shelving going all the way up the walls.

Some other creative ways of adding storage space to a small room include:

Hang a shelf above the door frame
Using over the door hangers and organizers. These can be put over the door to the room, or over any closet doors
Use the inside of your closet doors – screw in some hooks or railings

If you need to store anything out in the open, try and get good looking containers. This way your storage pieces also act as decor pieces in the room. Some examples of good looking storage containers include: