12 Farmhouse Entertainment Center Decor Ideas

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Love the rustic style of farmhouse or industrial home decor? Today we’re sharing farmhouse entertainment center decor ideas.

Ever since Chip and Joanna Gaines graced the small screen with their popular HGTV show, Fixer Upper, farmhouse style has been popular and trendy for home decor and interior design. Perhaps you’ve been daydreaming about ways to add a sliding barn door in your living room? Or trying to figure out how to decorate a farmhouse entertainment center? Today, we’ll show you an easy way to do both!

Farmhouse Entertainment Center Decorating Ideas - Ideas for the Home by Kenarry

Over the past twelve months, we’ve been giving our ranch style home a main floor makeover. Mostly we’ve been changing all our paint colors and flooring to be more neutral and rustic. We’re also adding a few key furniture pieces and some decorative touches to give our home industrial or farmhouse style.

Some of my favorite things about farmhouse style are the large sliding wood barn doors that people are installing in their homes. Sliding barn doors are a fairly easy way to give your house that farmhouse look, but you have to have the right home structure to actually make it work.

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Where To Put Sliding Barn house doors without doorways

I really, really wanted to add sliding barn doors to our home. However, as you can see in the before photos I shared a few weeks ago, our living room, dining room and kitchen on the main floor of our home are really just one big great room.

BEFORE:

Tan sectional couch in yellow living room adjacent to a rustic orange kitchen with maple cabinets

There are no doorways or wall space for the sliding barn doors that I’ve been admiring on all the home shows, blogs, and magazines.

We only have one doorway in the living room that leads to our boys’ bedroom, playroom, and bathroom. Kent and I debated and discussed whether we could frame it in to provide the structure to hold a heavy wooden barn door. But as you can see in the photo below, there are light switches that would need to be moved.

BEFORE:

Bright yellow hallway in a home

We also couldn’t figure out how the sliding barn door would close against the wall. Likewise, we couldn’t imagine how our young boys would keep from slamming it every time they went through. Plus we started to ask ourselves if it’s worth doing if the sliding barn door trend will be out of style in another 3-5 years? Eventually, we talked ourselves out of it.

The best Farmhouse Entertainment Center

After we decided we couldn’t structurally install a sliding barn door in our home, I had almost given up hope entirely. But then… I found this large farmhouse style wood bookcase and entertainment center at World Market. It was LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT.

This beauty had everything I dreamed of — gorgeous big sliding barn doors and rustic wood. I just knew it was going to look perfect in our living room and give the room that farmhouse style I wanted.

The best part about this barn door entertainment center is you just slide the barn doors closed to hide your television. (By the way, if you don’t want to use this bookcase as an entertainment center like I did, it also comes with two additional shelves that you can use in that spot instead.)

12 Decorating ideas for a Farmhouse Entertainment center

The farmhouse entertainment center is tall and wide. It fits perfectly on the wall where we already had our television. I think it looks great alongside our farmhouse style family photo gallery wall in the living room too.

Now that I’ve shared where I found this gorgeous farmhouse entertainment center, let’s take a look at some tips for how to style and decorate it.

Farmhouse style bookcase in a living room

1. Buy A Barn Door Entertainment Center

Like a painter with a canvas, it’s always best to start decorating with a blank slate. The very first thing you need is the entertainment center. Shop your local furniture store, or buy one online at Amazon or Wayfair.

After you have the entertainment center, keep it completely clear of any decorations yet. This prevents you from overcrowding the shelves by adding more decor and from keeping something on a shelf just because it’s always been there.

If it’s not already empty take everything off every shelf in your bookcase or entertainment center.

A television can be hidden behind sliding barn wood doors on this farmhouse entertainment center.

2. Use Items You Already own

Gather all of the home decor that you aren’t currently using elsewhere in your home or that you think you might want to use on your farmhouse entertainment center. If you bought a few new items for your bookshelf, keep the tags on them for now. This will make it easier to return those pieces if you decide not to use them.

When I’m decorating a big area like an entertainment center, I like to put all the decor on a big folding table in the space. This way you can easily see all your options.

Home decor on a folding table ready to decorate a farmhouse style book case with sliding barn wood doors

3. Put in the big decor pieces first

Once your shelves are empty, start by placing the big or bulkier decor items on the entertainment center first. This includes any of your large 8×10″ framed photos, vases, boxes and baskets. For a farmhouse entertainment center, think about using big items like large painted glass pitchers or galvanized metal olive buckets.

A large farmhouse style pitcher, galvanized metal olive basket filled with flowers, family photo and Willow Tree figurines on a bookshelf

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Using small brown leather suitcases also adds to the vintage or aged appeal that is common with farmhouse style. These suitcases can also provide hidden storage in your living room if you care to use them that way.

Vintage style leather suitcase with Willow Tree figurine on a shelf

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4. Create balance on both sides of the television

As you place the big items on the entertainment center, strive to create visual balance. For example, if you have two vintage leather suitcases, put one on each side.

Likewise, if you have two 8×10″ framed photos, put them on shelves at eye level horizontally across from one another. Don’t put them both on the same side of the bookshelf.

Baskets, Bibles, Willow Tree figurines and other home decor on a bookcase with sliding barn wood doors

5. Unify Your Farmhouse Entertainment Center With Color

One easy way to make a farmhouse entertainment center look cohesive and well put together is to use decor with a common color scheme. Throughout our bookshelves, you’ll see mostly cream or ivory colored decor, some warm brown decorative boxes and a few pops of bright red.

For a great example of this, check out how my friend Abby at Just a Girl and Her Blog decorated her living room this fall in aqua and white.

Farmhouse style decor on an entertainment center with sliding barn wood doors

6. Include sentimental pieces

The living room is often where families spend the majority of their time together. So make sure you include some decor that personally means something to you. For example, on one of our shelves you’ll find a framed photo, toasting glasses and a vase filled with sand from our wedding.

Wedding memorabilia and Willow Tree figurines on a bookshelf

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7. use books as fillers

Once you’ve got all the big decor items in place, use books to fill in the gaps. I’ve included family Bibles, the latest book series I’m reading with the kids at bed time as well as travel books from places we’ve been.

I like to place a few books on nearly every shelf and stack them in different ways. This creates more visual interest than filling only one or two shelves entirely with books. You can even use a small stack of books to create height to fill vertical space within a shelf like I did in the photo below:

A glass vase filled with decorative balls on a stack of travel books next to a family photo and Willow Tree figurines of boys

8. store or hide away clutter

With an open concept living room, there aren’t really closets or cabinets for storage. We often use our main living space as a home office. The sliding barn wood doors on this farmhouse style entertainment center allow us to easily hide the TV as well as our printer/scanner when they’re not being used.

Baskets and boxes store extra printer paper and ink cartridges so they’re out of sight, but ready whenever we need them.

Printer, baskets and decorative storage boxes on an entertainment center

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9. look for easy way to make sensational changes

Consider easy ways you can change up the decor on your farmhouse entertainment center for different seasons. For example at Christmas time, the ivory-colored flowers in the metal olive basket will get replaced with bright red poinsettias.

In the fall, I’ll use deep golden-colored flowers and also add faux pumpkins on all the shelves. In springtime, I’ll fill the basket with a bright green plant and add a few white ceramic rabbits. During summer, perhaps I’ll use pink flowers and a few teal accents.

A galvanized metal olive basket filled with burlap and large flowers gives a book shelf farmhouse style

10. add in texture

Look for ways to add varying textures to your farmhouse entertainment center. This can be done through the weave of storage baskets, knit blankets, decorative balls in vases and more.

Cream colored knit blanket in a basket, photos of young men in the Air Force

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Farmhouse style can also be achieved by adding a few strategically placed pops of burlap ribbon or fabric. You can see I have some nestled among the flowers in the galvanized metal olive basket.

A galvanized metal olive basket filled with burlap and large flowers gives a book shelf farmhouse style

11. place The small items last

Once you’ve got all your big decor pieces and books in place, it’s time to add the small knick-knacks. Be careful not to go overboard here or it will start to look cluttered. Put just one or two small items on each shelf.

Over the years, I seem to have amassed a small collection of Willow Tree figurines. I used to have them on the dresser in our master bedroom. The neutral color and style of these figures go well with farmhouse style, so I moved the collection to the living room.

I placed just one or two on each shelf and tried to vary their position and placement. Having the figurines on both sides of the shelves creates a unifying appearance similar to what I mentioned earlier with color scheme.

Don’t feel like you need to put EVERY single piece of decor on the shelves that you set on the folding table back in step #2. If you have brand new items you didn’t use, you can return them and get your money back. Otherwise, box and store away any unused items you still want to save for another decorating day.

Donate any items you don’t think you’ll every use again to a local charity. Your unwanted items might be just the perfect thing for someone else’s home decorating project.

A large farmhouse style pitcher, galvanized metal olive basket filled with flowers, family photo and Willow Tree figurines on an entertainment center

12. Stand back and look at the whole farmhouse entertainment center

Last, but not least, once you’ve placed your decor on your farmhouse entertainment center, stand back and take a good look at the whole thing. Ask yourself:

  • Are the colors balanced?
  • Are the sizes of the decorative items well balanced?
  • Does one side of the bookcase feel “heavier” than the other?
  • Do you like the way it looks?

Rearrange things until you’re satisfied with the outcome. After all, you’re the one who will be looking at this entertainment center every day. So if YOU like it, that’s what is the most important of all!

A television is hidden behind sliding barn wood doors on this farmhouse entertainment center.

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What’s Next? 

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Easy Decorating Ideas Farmhouse Entertainment Center - Ideas for the Home by Kenarry

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