For today’s Fresh Style Guide, we wanted to put focus on rustic furniture, and what it means for your home. We’re from Saskatchewan, so the fundamentals behind rustic furniture don’t get by us easily – we see loads of intrinsic value here in the Land of the Living Skies.
Let’s just start with the definition, because rustic (or rustic-chic, which we’ll also address) can have a varied meaning: the fundamental element is the same though. Go watch an episode of Little House on the Prairie.
It’s that.
More broadly, it’s a style of furnishing and decorating that focuses on a balance between the warmth of wood, and the cold of wrought iron. It’s a gret style to choose from because in most homes, it brings a timelessness that’s difficult to replicate: think of your grandparents’s house, and the furniture there. Now think of the piece you saw at a garage sale that reminded you of that same grandparents’s house. There’s a constant sense of familiarity tangled up in many of the furniture pieces we see, and by continuing to hone in on the style, we carry rustic furniture into the hereditary future. Here’s a Kijiji search for Saskatchewan barn wood – it’s in demand! Furniture makers are recycling old barns, which are in turn popping up everywhere. Now, we’re not recommending a stylistic adjustment to something like this:
Yikes. Don’t get me wrong, it has its charms, but if everything in a room was the same colour of ultramarine, you’d be singing Eiffel 65 in minutes.
Which brings us to rustic-chic. This is a style that we, at Fresh Living, love to incorporate elements of into a home – we say “elements” because obviously a new home isn’t (often) going to feature the wood paneling of the above image. Instead, we can help build familiarity by using pieces or designing rooms that incorporate an older style, without being straight out of the 19th century.
In these images, we have taken the lovely flooring and added a darker palette of wood in our pieces; a set of coffee tables with glass tops and a slab table with bench help pull the rustic out of a modern kitchen without creating unnecessary contrasts.
In a couple of other stagings we’ve done, similar elements have been applied; check out how, in this living room image, we have a lovely wood base for a bright couch that mimics the darkened pattern yet again – doesn’t it look inviting?
The end tables (there’s a twin on the other side of the bed) have a similar effect; they tug at our heartstrings by blending the old and familiar with the new and exciting.
There is lots of room to play between the familiar and unfamiliar – if you’re feeling a little lost in this regard but want to incorporate more rustic elements, check out our website and Request a Quote – we offer consultation services to help make your home as happy as can be! Thanks for reading!
