Why I Refuse To Put Farmhouse Decor In My Home

Hear me out.  Because I know that title is very, “Well, aren’t we up on our high horse today?”  Haha!

Can I tell you that I adore rustic farmhouse decor down to the very last cotton stem?  Can we still be friends now?

Okay. Whew! I was worried.

If you’ve been following this little ol’ blog of mine for a while, you might have noticed some things that have been really different lately.  Some of y’all have even sent me messages about it like “What’s the deal?”, so I thought it was time we had a chat.

Since Robert, Olivia, (and Lola) and I moved into our new-to-us 1960 Colonial revival house this spring, I’ve decided not to decorate it with rustic farmhouse decor.  And it’s not because I hate the farmhouse trend.  It’s because I felt like I’d be trying to make our home something it’s not.

It’d be like giving an already beautiful girl a ton of plastic surgery past the point of recognition.  Why?  When she’s already so beautiful exactly the way she is?

I knew when we bought this house that not a stick of shiplap would be nailed into these walls.  A roughed up Farmers Market sign would feel really out of place in our kitchen.  And tons of rusted galvanized metal, reclaimed wood, and livestock art just suddenly seems to stick out like a sore thumb.

It’s not that there won’t be anymore farmhouse decor at all (since of course there’s still hints of it our living room, breakfast nook, and master bedroom so far), just less of it.

Don’t get me wrong; I still won’t be letting go of some of my absolute favorites like our reclaimed wagon bench anytime soon.

In our last house, we did the farmhouse thing because it was a total blank slate.  It had literally 0% charm.  So I guess, that’s the beauty of builder grade.  You can do whatever you want!

At this point, I feel like I’m in uncharted territory.  I’m excited (and a tad intimidated) to try new things and explore more of what suits my (and Robert’s) tastes because I want to do this house justice in a modern-meets-traditional-meets-city-with-still-a-touch-of-the-farmhouse-style-that-I-still-love kind of way.  A bit more polished and refined and a bit less rough and raw.

So antique gold is happening.  Subtle wallpaper is making appearances.  And I’ve unintentionally gone ga-ga for marble and dark wood.

This house and I are still getting to know each other, but I’m really loving what it’s teaching me about opening my mind to new ideas and following my own path. Maybe things will get weird.  I dunno.  But it’s worth walking down this road to see where it takes me.

And, of course, even though staying on a tight budget is a LOT more challenging in an older house that needs a whole big list of updates, keeping it all affordable is still my ultimate goal.

In all of this, maybe there’s a lesson, the kind that we were always told as kids.  “Don’t do something just because everyone else is doing it.”  Don’t follow others if your heart feels pulled in a different direction.  And don’t try to be something you’re not, or in this case, what our house is not.

I hope all of our DIY adventures help you in some way, and I hope you know that by having you cheer me on and give me feedback with comments and messages on this new wild ride of ours gives me the courage and motivation and direction I need.  The fact that you are reading this means that you are the reason I wake up excited to do what I do with this blog.  I can never thank you enough for allowing me that.

At the end of the day, it’s not even the decorating I care about.  (Because, seriously, the fact that we all even have a roof over our heads is reason enough to rejoice, right?)  In the grand scheme of things, decorating is so trivial.  But it’s the feeling of accomplishment, discovering more about yourself, challenging yourself to things you never ever thought you could do, THAT is worth celebrating.  And that, ultimately, is what this whole DIY blogging journey is all about.

So can we still be friends?  Are you totally heartbroken and/or ticked off that the farmhouse stuff won’t be quite as front and center?  I promise you, it’ll still be around, just in smaller, less primitive doses.

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