James Farmer Designs a Timeless Georgia Farmhouse Rooted in Family, Patina, and Place

Wanting the house to tell the story of this land and the time the family has spent there, they started with a floor plan that features generous-sized gathering spaces (including the kitchen), cozy retreats, and functional workspaces along with plenty of bedrooms for visiting family members, including grandchildren. “They are the type of people who can go from it just being the two of them to having twenty people in the house in a matter of minutes, so it needed to work for all of those situations,” Farmer says. At the center of the H-shaped structure is the great room, which Farmer notes is the corridor of the home, leading into every other space. “We wanted the house to look like it had been here for a century and could’ve been added onto over generations—but we also wanted Wi-Fi and air conditioning,” he adds with a laugh.

In that same vein, the interiors were meant to tell the family’s story with collectibles appearing to have been added to shelves and artwork to walls over the course of time rather than on move-in day. Building materials also played a key in achieving this look. With the husband working in industrial construction, Farmer tasked him with helping to find the bones of the house such as the beams, the pecky cypress, and the heart pine floors that meander throughout the spaces. The walls are defined with built-in shelving, paneling and planks, and an exposed brick fireplace surround, all of which give character in a refined, yet purposeful manner.

Going back to his bend for timelessness, Farmer employed an age-old design technique credited to the British: the repetition of a pattern across multiple surfaces. Case in point, both the walls and windows of the primary bath bear Colefax and Fowler’s Snow Tree, while Lee Jofa’s Hollyhock makes an appearance on the host chairs and draperies in the dining room. “If you have an inspiration fabric that starts the room, use it on everything. Then, you can keep the supporting patterns in the same family; it’s like you can tell they are siblings, but they don’t look just exactly alike,” Farmer says. Even in such places as the great room, where there are more mixed prints, the patterns weren’t torn from the latest trend journal but rather are staples that would be as at home in a century-old manor as they are in the rural Georgia farmhouse.

While numerous family photos and heirlooms surround the couple, Farmer further personalized the design with new-to-them finds. Side tables and chests are dotted with vases that have been transformed into lamps, while commissioned artwork shows up in several key areas. In the couple’s bedroom an abstract painting of the property hangs over their bed, bringing a modern touch amongst antique furniture. Similarly, a commissioned work by EMYO depicting each member of the family down to their three-legged dog hangs over the great room hearth in the heart of the home.