Colors and Textures of Farmhouse Chic

The farm evokes strong feelings of honesty, purity, and function.  A feeling of continuity and self-sufficiency.  Of being one with nature.  It's Nature and Nurture.  Caring for the environment and caring for each other.  And, it feels very American.  Like Victory Gardens of the WW II era, vegetable gardens are poised for a strong come-back, thanks to a world trending toward earth-friendliness, a movement to self-sufficiency and Michelle Obama. Thinking of Farmhouse one conjures thoughts of no-frills, no-nonsense thrift . . . farmers were practicing Frugal Chic before it was Chic!

 Colors of Farmhouse, trending in for 2011 and beyond, are fertile and ever so evocative of times past.  Close your eyes.  Envision a gorgeous blue sky, bright sunshine, rich dark brown soil, gardens laden with succulent veggies and a dazzling array of flowers, fields of green and rolls of hay.  And, don't forget to include black and white Holsteins grazing on pesticide-free grass.

 Food colors will influence the Farmhouse palette.  The entire color array will be warm and yellowed.  Grays will segue through mushroom to more brown hues.  Whites will be milky.  Yellows will evoke butter and cheese continuing on to corn and mustard.  Reds show a yellow direction toward apples and tomatoes and a brown direction to terra cotta.  Think salads and peas for Green's focus.   Rounding out the Farmhouse palette will be carrots and eggplant on the vegetable side.  Peaches and plums on the fruit part.  And, soft Blues imitating water, the sky and hydrangeas.

 Textural fabrics will call to mind burlap, hopsacking and feed-sacks.  Even prints will look like textural wovens, many with the characteristics of tea-stain and oak graining.  Think hay and rope.  We will be seeing more use of yarn, inspired by the renaissance of knitting, especially fat-knits, in both home décor and fashion.  Rope and yarn are a natural transition to macramé!  Who remembers macramé from the 70's? 

 Historically inspired by the necessity to be frugal, patchwork and rag-rugs will jump to the forefront.  With the intensifying strength of ginghams and stripes we'll see a great deal of coordinated color in addition to monochromatic schemes.  Replay the envisioned farm in your mind.  Gaze at the patchwork of flower gardens and the multi-colored stripes of veggie gardens.

 Farmhouse Chic and its color palette feel truly American.  They are a constant . . . something that always is and always will be in style.  It's a unique, and disappearing, heritage that we can draw upon for comfort in these troubled times.

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 P.S.  Thank you Benjamin Moore and Doty Horn, CMG, for your color and trend influences in this blog.