If you have a penchant for the bucolic charm of French farmhouse chic, then you may be keen to seek decorating inspiration for your own home.
It’s no secret that the French farmhouse style of interior decorating has been a popular trend for some time, as it provides a seamless blend of traditional charm and functionality. At the same time, it’s a style that can easily be personalised to suit your own particular tastes.
If you are keen to transform your new property – be it a townhouse, a cottage, or even an apartment – into a rustic French sanctuary, read on for some top tips to help you get started.
Choose The Perfect Colour Scheme
Colours can be powerful tools for creating a particular style or atmosphere around the home. When it comes to recreating French farmhouse elegance, the best hues to incorporate are soft, cheerful colours, such as white, cream, yellow, and blue. However, if you want your home to have a little more flair and drama, then there is no harm in introducing a bold shade here and there; tomato-red kitchen walls, for instance, or a lounge lined with floral wallpaper.
At the end of the day, the palette you use should be dictated by your own personal taste. Just remember that, when it comes to choosing colours for any north-facing rooms, you may want to err on the lighter side. A pristine snowy white, or perhaps a sunny yellow, will help to uplift the space and give these rooms a feeling of brightness and tranquil beauty.
Embrace Authenticity And Go For Herringbone Floors
The rustic French style is all about showcasing time-honoured traditions, and this ethos can be embodied by every aspect of your interior décor – including your floors. To create an instantly more traditional feel in your new home, you may want to consider laying down herringbone flooring, which is available in a range of materials – from real wood to LVT and laminate. The herringbone pattern dates back centuries and has been used by a number of cultures, including indigenous North American and Old Irish. The herringbone design can even be seen in Ancient Egyptian jewellery. However, it first became a popular flooring pattern in the 1500s, and since then, it has never really gone out of fashion.
While the type of material you use will depend on your unique requirements, there’s no doubt that the classic herringbone pattern will lend timeless sophistication to your floors. This is a quality prized in the realm of rustic French chic.
Try Matching Your Curtains To Your Walls
If you’re looking for an easy way to tie a particular room together, then you may want to consider selecting curtains that match the colour or pattern on your walls. For example, if you have chosen a pretty floral or nature-inspired wallpaper for your bedroom, then you can choose a matching pattern for your curtains to create the feel of a sunny wildflower meadow or a tranquil forest glade.
Worried about the space looking too ‘busy’? Simply opt for single-coloured bedding, rugs and cushions, so the overall effect of the matching walls and curtains isn’t too overwhelming or discordant.
Introduce Some Genuine Antiques
To create that traditional rustic look, it can help to place some genuine antiques in strategic spots around your home. Alternatively, you may want to repurpose some old items of furniture or ornaments that may have been handed down through your family for generations.
Vintage items can easily be found in charity shops, antique stores and online, and there are so many options to choose from. You can layer your floors with vintage rugs, sit and sleep on vintage furnishings, use vintage crockery and cutlery in your kitchen, and include vintage pottery and leatherbound books on your shelves and bookcases.
Experiment With Fabrics
Perhaps one of the most charming qualities of French rustic chic is that it doesn’t have to be perfect. In other words, not everything has to match or create a flawless aesthetic.
Instead, you can opt for more of a ‘maximalist’ approach, using different fabrics and patterns to create a whimsical hotch-potch of colour and texture. Think large mirrors with eye-catching frames, an assortment of soft furnishings featuring printed fabrics with different patterns and designs, and various ornaments and trinkets dotted around the room for added interest.
Honour The Traditions Of The Past
In the ‘olden days’, as we might wistfully refer to them, many of the objects that people had in their homes were carefully and skilfully created to look appealing, but their foremost purpose was to be practical and serve a useful function.
You can take a leaf out of their book, and incorporate some clever traditional design features in your French-inspired home – for example, by including hooks and racks where you can hang pots and pans to save on storage space, or creating a pantry area to store tinned goods.
Conclusion
While rustic French design may have its roots firmly in the past, it remains as popular as ever, and is likely to continue inspiring homeowners well into the future. Using these helpful tips, you can start introducing French farmhouse chic throughout your home and give it that extra ‘je ne sais quoi’.
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