Farmhouse Tablescape (In the broadest sense)
The kitchen and dining room of our Victorian farmhouse is coming together, albeit slowly. I’ve got a couple of wall decor elements to add. These elements are going to take some do-it-yourself projects, thus, it’s not happening as quickly as I’d like. But the dining table is in place and needed to be dressed.
Dressing Down a Formal Place Setting
The tablescape I set in our dining area is best described as “dressed down formal.” My fine china is pretty formal. While our 1901 home is Victorian- it’s not Queen Ann or other formal style. It’s a farmhouse or folk Victorian. In keeping with the style of the house, I’m trying to keep a farmhouse feel. This doesn’t mean I can afford to go out and buy a entirely new set of more casual china for the table. So I’ve done the next best thing. I’ve tried to “countrify” the decor.
The Layers
The anchor for the theme of this tablescape is black and white buffalo plaid (or check). I’ve been leaning toward black and white (or cream) plaid decor since we put the contract on this house. It seems that this is pretty popular these day, luckily for me. Hobby Lobby has some super cute buffalo check decor so I picked up several things.
Buffalo check place mats and runner are my base element. A few weeks ago I purchased some antique embroidered napkins from an estate sale and I really wanted to use them. The are white with a pale blue design. Wanting to tie everything together, I grabbed a tall tin and filled it with blue and white hydrangeas and made it the centerpiece of the table.
The napkins now had a friend so they didn’t have to feel out of place. I took the blue idea a step further by adding another element with blue. My old place mats have a blue rose filigreed pattern, so I threw those in as well. By placing them on top of the checkered place mat vertically instead of horizontally, they made a nice frame for the place setting.
Finally I topped the napkins with the flatware that matches the china. Even though I’ve owned this beautiful set of flatware (complete with gorgeous cedar velvet lined box), they’ve really never seen the light of day. I’m terrible at taking my own advice. You really should use your “good stuff” and not keep saving it for that special occasion. Most of the time, you’ll never find a reason to use it and what’s the point of having beautiful things if you’re never going to use them? Let’s promise each other to stop waiting and throw caution to the wind and use that wedding china we’ve never considered using, ok?
It’s different, I know
Now, this throwing different styles together is not for everyone, I get that. But, I really like the result. As I’ve often told y’all, what is important is how your decor makes you feel. If you love it and it makes you feel accomplished and happy, who gives a flying rip what others think? There’s a lot of pressure these days to follow arbitrary design rules and sadly, people are so willing to let you know what you should have done and some how decor shame you.
There are some rules I feel strongly about, but that’s me. I’d rather encourage someone’s creativity and try to inspire them to keep going. We live in an ugly world these days, if nothing else, we should be kind to each other. Sorry- I didn’t know I was going to go there. But really, let’s love each other.
If you’ve got some ideas you were afraid to try- go ahead and DO IT! I’d love to see your tablescapes, feel free to share them with me in the comments.