The farmhouse style is all the rage right now and I am here for it. I absolutely love anything that is antique, rustic, or has chippy paint. But let’s face it, usually the best, vintage-looking pieces are super expensive. It seems like the more distressed an item is–which is what my eye is always drawn to–the more it costs. In this post, I’ll show you how I DIY-ed (is that even a word?) my own farmhouse decor pieces.
Let’s talk about books. They can really add some charm to a space. The more aged the pages look, the better. I wanted to add a few books to my living room decor, but I wanted to find an affordable way to do so. After looking online, I knew there had to be a cheaper solution.
As a teacher, I’ve acquired a lot of kid’s books from Goodwill, so I decided to see what else I could find there. And it turns out, they have shelves of books for only $1 each. I couldn’t imagine a better price for what I wanted. While rummaging through the hardcover books, I noticed almost all of them had sleeves. I knew that wouldn’t give me the vintage look I desired, so I picked one up and discretely took the sleeve off. Underneath was the most beautiful, plain, hard cover book!
Now that I revealed the beauty underneath the sleeve covers, I started sifting through for books that had aged pages, hoping they would look more antique and really mesh with my farmhouse style. I also paid close attention to the color of the cover (i.e. I didn’t want all of my books to be red when I pulled off the sleeves). After picking out a few navy, brown, emerald, mustard, and red books, my total was under $8.
When I stacked the books on top of each other, I didn’t love it. It needed a little something else. So I tied them together with some twine that I had laying around and that did the trick. The pages are a little less fragile, but it looks similar to a stack I was eyeing at my local antique mall (for a fraction of the price).
I placed the rest of the books in this basket from Gordmans. The stack added enough height that the basket doesn’t look like it’s caging my decor.
I am so pleased with the way the books look! Just don’t get too close or you may see the title Fresh Kills written ever so lightly on the spine. I don’t even want to know what that book is about.
Moving on…
Another item that says “modern farmhouse” to me is candle holders. I really wanted to place a few on my TV stand but after searching for what felt like forever, I couldn’t find any that I loved.
Finally, I found some wooden ones at Gordmans for 5 bucks, and I thought that was too good of a deal to pass up. I loved the shape of them too. The downfall was that I didn’t love the color of the wood (it was a honey color) and the fact that they only had one size. However, I figured I could just buy them now and find a creative solution to adjust the color and height later. Now that I had the two holders, I went to Hobby Lobby to get candles to top them off. I found a 3 inch pillar and a 6 inch pillar. The plan was to use the varied heights to create the illusion that the candle holders were staggered. I also placed the “taller” candleholder on top of the stack of books to add even more height.
To paint over the color of the holders, I used white chalk paint from Walmart. I didn’t do anything prior to painting them and I didn’t seal the paint because I knew I was going for a very distressed look, so I didn’t care if the paint chipped off. After two coats, and allowing the paint to completely dry, I used sandpaper to rough it up a bit. I kept sanding the edges and a few random spots in the middle until I was satisfied with the look.
The last thing I did was pick out a small plant to set in front of the stack of books to contribute to the illusion of staggered heights (It doesn’t actually hide anything, but I think it looks a lot better). I’m also kind of obsessed with faux plants, so I’ll take any opportunity to buy a new one.
I won’t mislead you, I definitely do buy the expensive farmhouse decor that I previously mentioned. But when the inspiration strikes for a diy project, I am all for it! So is my bank account.
Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed this post, and maybe even felt some inspiration to start a DIY project of your own 🙂
