Farmhouse Modern

Who called me chicken?, originally uploaded by mselderhuis.

I took the kids to a farm the other day to pick pumpkins and watched as the strangest thing happened. All of the stress of school, sports, sibling rivalry melted away as they cracked corn, fed it to the animals, and played on the hay bales.

It struck me that we need a little more ACTUAL farm in our lives.

So I am looking into raising a chicken or two. Naturally this led me to research the two most important aspects of raising livestock:

1. How to keep them from dying
2. Is there a way to make their living quarters stylish?

There are loads of sites that offer great information on raising chickens at your home.  Here are a couple that I like:

The City Chicken

Mad City Chickens

As for stylish chicken housing, I had to dig a little deeper.

This image comes from a Majordomo post on a prefab modern chick coop.

Here is the only decent (not old, tumble-down farm) chicken coop that I could find commercially:

It comes from Ideas4pets in the UK and costs $170.  With a little white paint and maybe a red metal roof it might look OK.  I would probably paint the door a bright color and see it I can find a small lamp to modernize it a bit.

What I am really looking for is more like a scaled-down version of this:

This one comes from a post on Minordetails.com.

This was sent to me by Matthew and Kara Roche from Mill Valley, CA. from a kitchen that they renovated in San Francisco. I see tons of kitchens that use a combination of old-school pulls and knobs, but I love the labeled pulls.

The pulls are from EM Hundley Hardware.

For more on cabinet hardware look at:

Brass Cup Handles

10 Easy Pieces (Remodelista)

Cooper’s Draftsman Stool above is from Wisteria, $149.

These are my picks for best Farmhouse Modern stool. Our set up requires a relatively narrow stool to fit 4 under a limited counter.

Please send me your favorites.

I love these from Established and Sons, but I cannot find it for sale in the US.

Diesel Series stool from SAFCO, $89.99.

Precision Stool with backrest $576 from DWR.

Modern Times Factory Stool from Sundance.  Available for $195.

30″ Diner Stool from Williams-Sonoma, $189.

Navy Counter Stool from DWR, $535.

The Square Guest bar stool from BDDW.

This one was sent to me by Fornesto Despues. I find this picture very evocative. it reminds me of a trip to the farmlands in mid Minnesota in rainy weather. I wonder if the farmhouse aesthetic doesn’t feel a little lonely in bad weather?

Bathing sheds from shedworking.co.uk

We are remodeling out kitchen and discussing (fighting about) the kitchen countertops.

Up to now, our assumption was carrara for the counters, soapstone for the large 8′x10′ island. As the ordering date draws near, we are thinking about all of the issues surrounding these porous materials so I went looking for alternatives.

These are the ones that I liked best.Our decorator recommended Crema instead of Carrara, but I am not convinced. Others suggest honed granite instead of soapstone and caesarstone instead of both.

I think we should stick with soapstone and honed Carrara and get a bottle of sealant, although the honed granite, dark grey Casearstone and Teak are still in the running.

Crema - Too yellow?

Soapstone

Soapstone

Teak

Carrara

Carrara

Carrara with 2+” edge

Caesarstone