What does “Coastal Farmhouse decor” bring to your mind? After long talks with my Firefly drive client on the kind of vibe she wants to evoke and the color palette she gravitates towards, we landed on “Coastal Farmhouse decor”. But she’s also into *some* blingy details– so we settled on Coastal Farmhouse x Glam for the mood board!
Read on to hear about the Firefly Drive: Main Living Spaces interior decor project – PLUS my list of 7 Coastal Farmhouse x Glam decor Elements.
The Vibe
Laid-back to fit her busy single-mom lifestyle. This is where the “farmhouse” element really comes in: chippy accents and weathered finishes that feel unfussy but still purposeful. Cohesive with a minimal color palette to give her some much-needed visual calm. Beachy–because that’s her happy place!
The Colors
Tranquil sea glass tones of pale turquoise combined with hits of a bolder peacock/lagoon teal feature throughout the combined living/dining/kitchen that is the downstairs of the Firefly Drive house. We love Behr’s Misty Isle! It makes for a space that hits the sweet spot between calming and uplifting. One of my fave sites, The Spruce, lists Misty Isle at the top of a great article highlighting the beach vibes of this shade: Cape Cod-Inspired Paint Colors for Your Home. If you’re looking to achieve a coastal farmhouse decor vibe, be sure to incorporate those watery sea glass colors!
Pale, cool tones of driftwood combined with darker cool tones of dark walnut lend the grounding vibes of natural elements throughout.
Sterling Oak is a lovely and apt name for this gray-washed Lifeproof flooring from Home Depot. It reflects light nicely and will work with any home decor style! These are key factors, especially if, like this client, you aren’t sure your current home will be your forever home.
Brushed and polished silver accents, along with sparkling crystal, bring the “glam” into the equation. We opted to bling out the ceiling! More on that below.
Going for a coastal farmhouse decor vibe that makes you think you’re living here.
Coastal Farmhouse x Glam decor Elements
1. Sea Glass Colors (also sea glass itself, duh).
Bring the water element in with those pretty turquoise, darker teal, and even a few cobalt hits throughout your space! My client already had pretty teal Mason jars filled with sea glass. I found a chippy paint spindle locally and I feel both of these are perfect coastal farmhouse elements!
It’s always more special if you’ve found it yourself, but if your own beach walks didn’t yield that perfect piece, there are plenty of ways to source driftwood! Consider supporting an artist, and score a unique piece made with driftwood. Another great option? Driftwood-colored wood pieces. Check out how I achieved the bleached wood look in this tutorial post! I used this technique on an old wooden shutter I found in the barn of my beloved local salvage place, Architectural Antiques of Indianapolis.
The shelf below is a main feature in the living room, and I think it’s a fantastic blend of coastal and farmhouse. And Glam! Can you spot that fancy silver skull decoration my client found in anticipation of spooky season?! LOVE IT.
4. Shells
This can look like a lot of different things, which is why shells make such great decor! You can display your own personally collected shells in jars, maybe with pretty labels on when and where you found them. You can have them loose on a tabletop (by which I mean in a tray, maybe with a few pillar candles, so it looks purposeful!). Have you seen the giant clamshells, real or faux, used as succulent gardens? Such a great look. I also love the museum display vibe of medium size shells or starfish on a stand with a pedestal.
As you can see from the shelf photo, I went with a vintage vibe for Firefly Drive: 1970s-era cowrie shell trivets, mounted on former jewelry display boards I’ve had stored since my days as a manager with White House | Black Market. This was a DIY made even more meaningful as the trivets remind my client of ones owned by family that has since passed.
Seagrass, sisal, jute, rattan, rope. . .there are so many fantastic textural elements that evoke that coastal vibe! To keep if from looking kitschy, use a light touch. I popped a big woven water hyacinth basket on top of the fridge as discreet liquor storage. It’s in a very visible location and is a natural resting place for the eyes when you’re looking at the kitchen area. We’ve got plans for a sisal or jute rug to go under the kitchen table area to balance out the effect. I did another DIY project! Check out this upcycled brass lamp I turned into a sisal rope-wrapped table lamp with a wood bead shade!–to add to the living room.
6. Glam up the Coastal Farmhouse Decor with some metallics and sparkle!
You could go with literally any metallic and it will work with your coastal farmhouse decor. My client is all about her silver jewelry so we went with silver, but gold/brass or copper will also pull the nautical vibe! (Think vintage brass telescopes, or those early copper diver’s helmets.) We put the sparkle on the ceiling with a show-stopper “fandelier” in the living room, and a light-catching display of crystal beading on a tiered flush-mount entry light. You can see in the photo, these ceilings are lower. Which means the design challenge is to find something that satisfies the “chandelier” fantasy. . .but won’t hit anyone’s head! Her existing kitchen fan was polished chrome, so we just gave it a coastal farmhouse decor makeover by taking the dark wood blades down and spray painting them a nice bright white. The white treatment does double duty here: the fixture now blends into that lower-height ceiling, making the space feel visually bigger.
Other shiny elements for Firefly Drive: a trio of DIY-painted mirrors (found on Ebay), a couple of 2-tier shelves my client already had in her garage (I did a galvanized metal DIY paint job on them), brushed silver-tone picture frames, and knick knacks.
7. Dark woods + Metal keep it balanced.
I know, I know–the “everything light and bright and white” thing is still all the rage. And I love it too! But I also love a balanced space, with some dark places for the eye to rest. Not to mention, when you’ve got two little girls under 6 and one teenage lady with a current penchant for pink hair. . .let’s just say darker colors in a few strategic places are pretty much necessary for this coastal farmhouse decor project.
The couch is a scrumptious velvet in dark peacock/teal (you can just see a corner of it in one of the photos above). End tables and TV stand incorporate the cool dark wood and iron elements and really anchor the space. The kitchen table and L-shaped seating bench are also a DIY for this house! I opted for Varathane’s Dark Walnut stain with a matte poly topcoat and we used the same darker gray Rustoleum paint kit that we used for her kitchen cabinets. The result: a cohesive CUSTOM kitchen area! And since the entire space is open-concept, having the same colors throughout really makes the lower level of this home feel more expansive than its actual square footage.
A little note on Firefly Drive:
This is an extra-special project for me, as the “client” was one of my closest girlfriends in high school! We lost touch for, oh, 12-13 years I would say. We both ended up in Indianapolis, met randomly for drinks or dinner for a year or so. When her marriage didn’t work out as she’d hoped (and tried so hard) for, I was banging on her front door with tequila and a notebook to plan out how we were going to shake out the bad juju and bring in all the love and light for her and her girls. At the time of this post, I think we’ve touched every room in her house! With a stop-and-start timeline, I’d say we’ve been retooling her home for the better part of a year… Letting go of old things and practicing daily clutter-clearing strategies. Organizing closets, cupboards, drawers–entire rooms. Painting. Decorating with calming and self-empowering themes that help this busy boss babe feel calm and in control. Burning candles with the windows open and inviting in all the good vibes this “girl house” deserves.
And of course–drinking lots of wine! Listening to our fave tunes from “back in the day”! And enjoying plenty of laughs. Because I believe that the energy you bring to a project is what you will attract into the space–so make sure you’ve got your mind right whenever you’re working in your own abode!
Wanna know how I clear out old energy and invite in the good vibes?
“Design is a plan for arranging elements in such a way as best to accomplish a particular purpose.” – Charles Eames
Fabulous as usual! Detail, pics, cleverly worded! Kudos!
Author
Omigoodness–Thank youuu! 🙂