Farmhouse Style with Farmhouse White

Introducing Farmhouse Style with Farmhouse White MMSMP

Is farmhouse style a new old trend? The original paint that Gardenhouse Studio carried as the go-to paint was MMSMP by Marion Parsons. Milk paint has been around for many, many years. Originally, all the barns were painted with milk paint.

MMSMP-Miss Mustard Seed Milk Paint

It’s been a while since the farmhouse style was introduced in home decor. When it first became popular, I painted a sign with Miss Mustard Seed Farmhouse White and the word “FARMHOUSE” and it sold within minutes [before I could take a picture]. I have been using the farmhouse style as a backdrop in our shop for years, and I still love it.

My Neighborhood Farmhouse Style

Vermonters are not new to Farmhouse Style; most of Vermont is still very rural, and although the dairy industry has been dwindling all over America, Vermont still has lots of dairy farms.

So what is farmhouse style?

Or my opinion of farmhouse style, since there are no rules. The way to accomplish the farmhouse style look I am sure differs depending on where you live. ex.”Farmhouse in the City”

I guess the definition is kinda self-explanatory, but farmhouse style to me is all about the family farm, a vanishing way of life in America. It’s chickens in the yard, farm equipment out back, lots of galvanized containers and everyday dairy items, it’s an old wood swing in the tree, clothes on the line, quilts, patchwork, and mending. Honest country farmhouse living is about making it yourself, growing it yourself, or going without and making do with what you have – the original re-purposing and up-cycling.

No farmhouse should be without a front porch and a few rocking chairs, a place to hang out with family and friends, sharing the day’s stories after a long, hard day of farm work.

farmhouse white for farmhouse style — My Neighbor’s Front Porch

The Farm as Decorating Style

For the most part, the decorating world has capitalized on this way of life and actually romanticized the farm life with beautiful pictures of immaculate homes with lots of white paint and farm-related decor, and certainly no dirty boots or manure smell in those homes!

I have lots of friends who operate farms here in Vermont, and their homes don’t look like the ones on Pinterest or in the magazines, and after milking the cows or slopping the hogs, they don’t smell like it either!

No worries, it’s a decorating style and I love it!

A few farmhouse accessories in the shop for sale.

Miss Mustard seed Farmhouse White — Miss Mustard Seed Milk Paint Farmhouse White

Achieving Farmhouse Style in Your Home

Farmhouse is cozy and warm, it’s natural wood and painted distressed furniture from years of use, it’s homespun and handmade, galvanized buckets, fresh flowers, old linens, chicken wire, crocks, wooden bowls, and gingham tablecloths. Farmhouse style embraces rural life and abounds with once-useful farm equipment and accessories to establish a connection to the farm.

For many people, the farm is a link to the past when grandparents or other relatives lived on the farm before the modern exodus to suburbia. I’ve lived pretty close to farm life most of my life, so I guess you could say we are right in style with this new “trend”. Although my dad has always said my style is early depression, [stuff other people throw away], after all, I am an antique dealer [junker]

As you shop for Farmhouse Style, look for things that speak of livestock, garden, and fresh produce and harvest in their function. This is our antique shop from several years ago in an old mill where we had the greatest beams, walls, and floors to display stuff. The piece on the wall would have been used to “beat the flax” in the process of making linen. An apple-picker is just out of the picture, and a hay rake, dish, and a couple of other tools are great to hang on the wall.