Living Room Decorating Ideas With Farmhouse Style
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Looking for some new living room decorating ideas? With these farmhouse style home decor tips, you’ll create a cozy space for your family to spend quality time together.
Give your living room a fresh look with new paint, new flooring and a few strategic furniture changes. In our reveal today, we’re sharing easy living room decorating ideas to give your home farmhouse style and charm.
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Hey there, Idea Insiders! I’m Carrie and today we’re sharing our next installment in our main floor makeover series – our living room reveal! If you’re just joining us, over the past month we’ve been revealing all of the big changes we’ve made to our ranch style home in the past year.
The makeover project included our master bedroom, the living room, dining room and kitchen. You can see all the before photos and read about our home makeover ideas and plans, but now it’s time to show you all the living room decorating ideas and changes we’ve made!
9 Farmhouse Style Living room decorating ideas
Your living room is where your family spends quality time together. You can personalize any of these farmhouse style living room decorating ideas to make your home into a space where you love to cozy up with your family.
idea 1: change your Wall color
One of the easiest, low cost ways to make a dramatic change in any home makeover project is paint! As you can see in the before photo below, our living room was a deep yellow color, like mustard. It was cheerful and welcoming, but man was it BRIGHT! You almost needed sunglasses when you walked in our front door.
Before:
I liked the dark yellow paint, but it made our natural maple mantel almost disappear above our fireplace. After more than 11 years, I was ready for a change. We chose Stone Isle HGSW1496 from Sherwin Williams, which is a light neutral gray. Wow, does it ever make a difference. The mantel REALLY pops now!
after:
Idea 2: Update your flooring
If your budget allows it, another great way to dramatically modify the whole look of a space is to change the flooring. When we started this main floor makeover, we decided that the carpet in the living room was worn, stained and needed to go.
Hardwood or laminate flooring fits best with the farmhouse style look we were trying to achieve. Although we love the look of rustic hardwood floors, we picked laminate flooring because it has the durability we need in our busy home.
With two active boys and a scruffy dog, we wanted flooring that could hide dirt and pet hair. We went with Allen + Roth Chesterfield Hackberry laminate flooring from Lowe’s (#936283) and are so pleased with how it looks!
Since our living room, dining room and kitchen are one big great room, we chose to change the flooring in all three of these rooms so that it would be consistent and flow well.
before:
After:
Idea 3: choose an eye catching entertainment center
In any living room, everyone’s attention is almost immediately drawn to the television. It’s important to pick an entertainment center that is eye-catching and fits the style you want for your home. Before the home makeover, our entertainment center was a disjointed combination of a desk, a small TV stand, and a bookshelf.
Before:
Thankfully, I found a gorgeous farmhouse entertainment center from Cost Plus World Market. The large size and those beautiful sliding barn doors have the wow factor I wanted for our space.
After:
I especially love how the sliding barn doors open to reveal the television and can be easily closed to hide it when it’s not in use. Be sure to check out my tips for decorating a farmhouse style entertainment center.
Idea 4: Create a small home office space in your living room
Living rooms often become a catch-all or multi-purpose space in our homes. They’re used for watching TV, curling up on the couch with a book, playing games with our family and so much more. This is especially true if you have a living room in an open concept home like ours.
Our living room does double duty as both our family room and our home office. The computer desk used to be an eyesore next to our TV stand before we got the new entertainment center. We moved it into a different corner surrounded by windows that give us plenty of natural light.
Choose a desk that hides cords, keyboards, and paperwork to give a tidier appearance when your home office is not being used. We’ve had the Mahogany Verona Cabinet Desk from Cost Plus World Market for several years now. The desk chair is a Herman Miller Aeron Chair that we won a fundraising auction.
Our desk has barn wood doors which give it farmhouse style. However, you can also add a desktop organizer to dress up the space. Ours is brown leather similar to this one, but a galvanized metal desk organizer or a distressed white pencil holder would also give your home office nook a little farmhouse style.
To help protect the desk from everyday wear and tear, we put a clear desk pad on top of it under the computer monitor. Plus you can slide photos under the clear pad to personalize the work space.
Idea 5: make you’re mantel a center point
If you have a fireplace in your home, chances are it’s one of the things people notice first in your living room besides your television. Before the main floor makeover, our actual wood mantel was almost unnoticeable, even with my colorful fall mantel decor.
Before:
We moved the white mirror to another location in the living room and replaced it with a larger farmhouse style mirror from Hobby Lobby (This is similar.). We hung the new mirror several inches higher than the previous mirror and now you can see how much more the mantel and home decor really stand out. (The pillow in front is a fireplace draft protector I made myself.)
After:
Idea 6: Choose Cozy throw pillows and blankets
Changing our sectional sofa, end tables and lamps were out of scope for this main floor makeover. However, replacing pillows and throw blankets is an easy budget-friendly way to change the look of a space.
You can see in the before photo below, ours were mismatched and misshapen.
Before:
I chose dark gray, black and cream/ivory accent pillows to tie in with the dark gray wall in the kitchen. It’s a great way to make the old tan furniture blend better with the new gray walls and decor. Our charcoal grey nail head pillow and black and cream tuxedo pillow came from the store “At Home”.
After:
Throw blankets folded over the back of the couch or layered over the arm of a chair add instant warmth and coziness to a living room. The gray and white ombre throw blankets are lightweight and fleecy with a little herringbone texture. Ours are from Costco. This blanket is similar.
Idea 7: Use area rugs to define space in the living room
Using area rugs in an open concept home helps to define space and add a warm and cozy feel. The 5 foot 3 inch by 7-foot area rug is Torino Tongva Gray from Costco. (This is similar.) We wanted something gray with a fairly simple pattern so it didn’t detract from the wild look of the wood grain in our laminate floors.
The area rug ties the family room together so the couch doesn’t look like an island floating in the middle of the room.
Idea 8: Personalize Your walls with farmhouse style decor
Another great way to incorporate farmhouse style into your home is through your wall decor. Use rustic wood and galvanized metal picture frames to create a gallery of your favorite family photos on one of the walls in your living room. Earlier in this series, I shared the secret behind creating a family photo gallery wall so you only have to nail it once!
I found the gorgeous industrial pulley clock at Hobby Lobby. Unfortunately, they don’t sell it online but you could DIY your own version using a pulley like this and an industrial metal clock.
The galvanized metal letter Y framed with rustic wood came from Hobby Lobby. (If you don’t have a Hobby Lobby near you, this one is similar on Amazon.)
Idea 9: Reuse Home Decor Pieces You Already Have
Wherever possible as you’re decorating your living room, try to use home decor you already have. This saves money and is helpful to the environment. As you look at our before and after photos, you’ll see many items that were moved to new spots.
For example, the glider rocker in the corner of the living room used to be in the boys’ baby nursery. (Though I did buy the Keecy Onyx throw pillow when I got the other pillows from the store, At Home.)
Likewise many of the vintage looking suitcases, floral pitcher, olive baskets and other decor on the bookcase used to be above the cabinets or on the table in our kitchen.
questions about these living room decorating ideas
As you consider implementing these living room decorating ideas in your own home, a few questions may come to mind including:
The coziness of your living room is a feeling. It’s how you visually perceive the space when you look at it. Does it make you want to crawl in and curl up with a good book? Or snuggle up to binge-watch Netflix? You can make your living room cozy by choosing comfortable furniture, warm throw blankets, and well-stuffed pillows. Using knit fabrics, fleece and other textures helps to create the warm and cozy feeling you desire.
Farmhouse style is a term popularized by Chip and Joanna Gaines and their HGTV show Fixer Upper. It refers to home decor and interior design that has an intentional function and purpose like you would find in a house built on agricultural land. It often involves neutral colors, rustic or distressed wood and galvanized metal, including shiplap walls, vintage or antique decor and industrial furnishings. In a farmhouse-style home, you’ll also find outdoor items that have been re-purposed for indoor use like barn doors and reclaimed wood.
Rustic farmhouse style typically involves reclaimed or natural wood elements that haven’t been sanded smooth. It focuses on the rugged natural beauty of farm elements used for decorative purposes. Modern farmhouse style is similar but tends to use more sleek and clean lines as you find with contemporary interior design.
Both styles can be combined to create a cozy aesthetic using natural textures and materials like wood or galvanized steel. Rustic and modern farmhouse style usually consists of warm, earthy and neutral colors, like cream, beige and gray.
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What’s Next?
You may also enjoy these living room ideas on Ideas for the Home by Kenarry® –
- A Farmhouse Style Picture Frame Tutorial
- How to Stencil Faux Tile Around Your Fireplace
- DIY Throw Pillow Tutorials: 18 Great Home Decor Ideas
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