No, your style is not Modern Farmhouse.

At the start of a project, a lot of clients claim their style is Modern Farmhouse. It never actually is.

Working with me, it doesn’t take long for them to develop a sense of their own style. (It’s a part of the job that I adore.) I can’t recall any other design trend that people so routinely said was their thing, but absolutely was not.

Design speaks to our soul-needs. So what is modern farmhouse trying to say?  (Or was it, when it peaked 10 years ago…) Why does it matter, and what do you do if you think it’s your thing? Why do most designers seem to hate it, while it remains popular amongst clients? Let’s discuss, so we can all move on from it.

Home design trends are made by designers and artists and tastemakers that are attuned to what we are co-creating as a society. They mix art, politics, music, important moments, and evolving values together in the bubbling culture cauldron, and that mix get reflected back to us in the marketplace.

The mashups that get the most traction get blanded out to stretch the income potential, which is a surer bet than A/B testing risky new designs.

And Modern Farmhouse takes zero risks.

In its refusal to really say anything, (or even choose a color!) it is a middle-class architectural fantasy that struck a gong for a lot of Americans. It occupies the center of a Venn diagram of our national fear of High Design, our need to have but not flaunt wealth, and also to look sane in front of our neighbors.

It’s “comfortable”, it’s easy to understand, you don’t need a any background in design or art history to understand the references, it’s available at accessible price points, it’s familiar but sort of new. I do understand the roots of its popularity.

It’s Modern because it strips the chaotic vulgarity of a 90s McMansion roofline back to the simplicity of a gable roof of a kid’s drawing.  And for a lot of people, that alone was a palette cleanser.

It’s Farmhouse, because that’s a more romantic spin on Not-Rich-Person’s house, in a way that “unremarkable squat rancher” is not. And we as a nation are uncomfortable with the architectural references of wealth.

But 1) Farmhouse and Modern are antithetical to each other, which is where all great gaslight-y marketing begins, and 2) it’s actually neither Modern nor Farmhouse. That’s of greater interest to me.

It’s a populist re-imagined historical fiction in theory, and hyper-niche trend in reality.

It’s references to a illusionary, agrarian past, through a lens of people who have never milked a cow. It’s massive (modern) proportions of old-timey things, like apron sinks and prepper costco storage in the Boot Room. It’s simple, ‘honest’ wood furniture features that are almost all veneered reproductions. And it’s sliding barn doors where literally any other door type would have worked. (OMFG those doors.)

It’s undecided voter in October of an election year. “It’s fall, ya’ll’ signs. It’s where staging furniture and Target furniture and your mom’s old furniture from Sears all meet to share a casserole and $5 chardonnay and platitudes. (“Gather…”)

Completely unmoored from architectural historical context, MF is a freewheeling amalgam of references and absolutely made up shit, that really only feel at home in the Central Time Zone. And there’s a reason for that.

If you are a regular reader, you know I blame Joanna Gaines. She lived in a very rural area, flipping modest 20th century houses in the post ‘08 crash era. Modern Farmhouse came from an environment where people were suspicious of high art, and its coastal, intellectual overtones, and also had limited materials literacy or actual budget for their homes. All she had to work with was reclaimed barn boards, gooseneck lights, and galvanized stock tanks, and she certainly wasn’t going to introduce any weird stuff that would spook the client. In her context, the idea of “Modern Farmhouse” made sense, as a marketing tool more than anything else.

But in reality, it's a hyper-niche design approach. The sort of thing that resonates in context, like a row of candy-colored cottages does in Barbados but not Brooklyn.

Shoehorning the ultra niche geographically and socially contextualized Modern Farmhouse look of the Texas plains into a 90’s tudor inspired spec house, or a gothic revival in an urban environment is wild, though.

There are other problems with it as well, and I think this is where it loses designer support.

It’s erased of personal values or viewpoints, as one might express through their use of color or art, which is pretty much what we do around here as designers. It’s bland because it was designed not to offend, but also, not to be inclusive or expansive or expressive. (Which itself comes from a Texas culture that secretly adores tacky but also is obsessed with the neighbors think. That’s a real tough position to make a visually interesting space from….) It’s very very white.

Antiques and really great art are not part of the MFer look. Or, phrased another way, expensive stuff isn’t. If you follow the rules of the MF look, there’s almost no way to introduce color or personality or ultra high quality pieces. From a designer’s perspective, any style that makes high quality art or furniture look out of place is uninspiring. Like what’s the point?

But for that exact reason, it’s brilliantly comfortable for many people. No stressing out that their weirdness is going to tank their resale price, (another fallacy that lays waste to Good Design). No worrying about the general low quality of the furniture, because it’s all sort of middling, so nothing stands out. And, no stressing about color, because it’s all neutrals everywhere. It looks better in picture because of the high contrast and lack of pattern, than it does in person, so the quality issue isn’t glaring as you scroll through Pinterest. But in real life, there is a lack of animism and vitality to these spaces.

For most people, this just isn’t the statement they wish to make with their homes, even if the initial appeal is how “comfortable” that space feels as an idea. And for that reason, I don’t think you’re the Modern Farmhouse type, deep down.

(If however, neo-ruralism-in-greyscale sets your heart alit, then you do you, MFer.)

But it’s highly likely that your style is not modern farmhouse. Your style might be Vincente Wolf moves to Anadulsia. Or Kitchen Witch in the Woods, or Miami Vice-core, or Laura Ashley-takes-a-dieta-in-the-jungle, or art director moves upstate, or 70s Marin commune meets Japandi, or Retired Professor with an art collection.

To have a house with soul, a space that supports and reflects you, you have to know yourself well enough to want to celebrate yourself, rather than mute yourself. And that’s worth the self-reflection.