Modern farmhouse · Texoma
Modern farmhouse builder in Sherman and the Texoma area
It is the style most people arrive asking for, and it is the one Randy has built most of. Board and batten, a deep porch, a vaulted great room with beams that are actually holding something up. Done properly it suits this landscape. Done cheaply it looks like a catalog.
What makes one
Six things that separate a modern farmhouse from a house painted white.
Board and batten
Vertical siding with raised battens over the seams. It is the detail that reads farmhouse from the road, and it is also the one most often faked in thin panel products that telegraph within a few years.
A real porch
Deep enough to sit under in August, on posts sized like structure rather than decoration. Cedar posts on a proper footing, not wrapped columns.
Vaulted ceilings with exposed beams
The volume is the point. Beams that are actually doing something read differently from beams glued to a flat ceiling, and the difference is obvious standing underneath them.
A restrained palette
Randy has built these in near-white and in a dark stained board and batten, and both work for the same reason. Siding, roof, windows and one warm wood note. It goes wrong when a fifth material turns up.
White oak and honest hardware
Kitchens in white oak or painted cabinetry with an island in a contrasting wood. Hardware in matte black or unlacquered brass that is allowed to age.
Windows placed for the light
Tall windows, grouped, sized to the wall rather than to the plan book. On an open lot out here that is most of what makes the room.
Where it goes wrong
The style is easy to approximate and hard to get right.
Modern farmhouse became popular fast, and a lot of what got built in that window used thin siding panels, applied beams and a fifth material nobody needed. It looks right in photographs for about three years.
The difference is in the substrate, the batten spacing, the porch depth and whether the structure is doing what it appears to be doing. None of that shows in a rendering, which is why it is worth walking a finished house before you commit to a builder.
Go and walk oneWe never had to chase him. If we called, he answered — and if he said he’d be there Tuesday, he was there Tuesday.
Hamid & Lisa S.O’Brien homeowner
Also worth reading
- Building on land you already ownThis style wants a lot with some room around it.
- Custom or production builderPlenty of production plans are sold as farmhouse.
