Lighting is so much more than functional, it serves as a personal expression of style for your home. Selecting the right chandelier for your dining space is just as important as finding the perfect dining table to host dinner parties or choosing the perfect painting to fill a wall. The right light fixture provides illumination while also serving as an art piece or a conversation starter. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and beautiful lighting helps others see your vision.
Welcome to the third installment of Lamps Plus’s Choose Your Style series of articles, in which we explore four of our major styles: contemporary modern, coastal, rustic modern, and traditional. In this installment, join the experts of Lamps Plus as we do a deep dive into the Rustic Modern style to help you make your home an expression of you.
What is Rustic Style?
More of a vibe than a uniformly agreed upon aesthetic, Rustic architecture and design is considered an informal style heavily influenced by the American Craftsman design movement, which was in turn inspired by the international Arts and Crafts design movement which originated in England and spread across the British Empire in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Similar to the Arts and Crafts movement, American Craftsman served as a reaction to the overdone and Renaissance inspired styles of the Victorian era, leaning towards simpler, more naturalistic designs. Real wood and stone, hand-made furnishings, and a look outwards to natural beauty rather than industrial or overcomplicated artistry. Above all, American Craftsman homes were built to showcase the talent of the artisans who designed and built them, rather than focusing on the intricate details of the pieces themselves.
Rustic style takes the American Craftsman aesthetic and leans even more heavily into simple, comfortable living with designs inspired by log cabins, artisan blacksmiths, and honest, hand-crafted art. Even the word itself, rustic, looks to the past as a loan word from Latin, a descendant of the word rusticus, which meant “of the country” or “rural”.
Within this style you’ll find lighting and home furnishings designs made from or incorporating natural materials like wood and stone, as well as wrought iron meant to evoke a blacksmith toiling over their forge. Some pieces also include leather straps and accents inspired by American ranches and lodges. Rustic designs may also showcase visible joints and intentionally imperfect textures to create that artisan feel. In short, rustic is all about your home feeling lived-in and comfortable.
How Does It Combine with Modern?
So, with rustic being this down-to-earth, how does it combine with modern design elements to create the Rustic Modern style? As covered in the first article of our Choose Your Style series, modern is a specific artistic movement which occurred both concurrently and following the American Craftsman movement. It focuses on clean lines, neutral or even monochrome palettes, and leaning more towards function over ornamentation. Materials like concrete, glass, and refined metal are also very common, as is built-in LED technology for lighting. At first glance, contemporary modern style could not be more different from rustic design.
However, the two combine more seamlessly than you may realize! Rustic Modern takes the best of both worlds, combining the rough, hand-crafted materials of rustic design with the refined shapes and clean lines of modern style. A traditional style barn pendant light may be augmented with a geometric cage, or a farmhouse chandelier can be designed with a streamlined, linear frame rather than ornate scrollwork. Exposed bulbs or industrial style hardware can also be found within the Rustic Modern style, embracing some of the utility-mindedness of contemporary modern. Overall, rustic modern lighting is simple and honest with a dash of modern sensibility.
Rustic Modern Chandeliers and Pendants Embrace Cabin Comfort
While very similar, chandeliers and pendant lights serve two very different but equally important functions in a room. Chandeliers are a focal point, a lighting fixture around which the rest of the room radiates outwards. Pendants, on the other hand, accent a room, equalizing illumination in the case of standard pendants, and highlighting specific areas in the case of kitchen island lights.
Rustic style chandeliers and pendants have a love of dining rooms, great rooms, and even entryways with vaulted or high ceilings. These pieces are designed to evoke the feeling of forest cabins or mountain lodges, using wood as a main construction material, or metals like iron with wood accents. Black and bronze finishes are also common for rustic modern designs with a little more industrial inspiration, especially when paired with exposed bulbs like traditional candelabras.
You can also find rustic modern pendants in linear designs, perfect for smaller dining spaces or kitchen islands. Some pendants may feature metal drum shades, like Lamps Plus’s own Julian collection, or cage-inspired designs made to evoke hand-crafted iron appeal.
Wood Tones Elevate Rustic Ceiling Fans
Ceiling fans may be a relatively recent invention in the world of home décor and lighting, but the technology has been around for longer than you may think! When American Craftsman and Rustic homes were first being built, ceiling fans were incorporated into the design, especially in locales with hotter or more humid summers and autumns. Rustic modern style ceiling fans hearken back to these early designs, evoking that minimalist, wood tone aesthetic.
While solid wood blades may not be as common anymore, rustic modern style ceiling fans still want to embrace that look with wood composites and finishes, creating lovely brown colors and woodgrain textures. Complementing those walnut, oak, and even driftwood tones are black motor finishes, creating designs that feel perfectly at home in spaces with a lodge or farmhouse feel.
Rustic ceiling fans tend to feature designs with fewer blades than more ornate models, with three blades being the most common, leaning into that simpler Craftsman look. Caged ceiling fans are also popular for people looking for designs with replaceable bulbs, but the modern combination really shines through the designs with integrated LED modules. Just remember that built-in LEDs cannot be replaced!
Rustic Style Table and Floor Lamps Impress with Iron and Stone
Very few rooms are complete without a table or floor lamp, and these pieces are one of the easiest ways to utilize your lighting in a way that suits and completes your home’s style. Table and floor lamps are extremely versatile, with so many floor lamps being optimal for building the perfect reading nook. These lamps truly come in all styles, and rustic modern is no exception.
Similar to the other categories discussed in this article, there are a few common materials you’ll find in rustic modern table and floor lamp designs. Iron and metal are of course featured prominently, lending a solid feel and comfortable weight to these designs. For that hand-carved look, you can also find lamps either made from real wood or with wood finishes in simple, sturdy forms. In a few cases, like Lamps Plus’s Tahoe collection, real slate is used to craft the base. Rustic modern is all about blending natural materials with modern aesthetics to create something lasting.
As for lamp shades, drum shades are the most common shape, and are typically found in more neutral toned linen and burlap materials. These materials and color pair easily with the darker, more rustic bases, enhancing your home’s lived-in look. However, rustic modern table lamps have not abandoned modern technology! Many of them even include built-in USB ports in the base to charge your devices.
Feel the Mood Lighting with Rustic Wall Lights
Wall lighting is an incredibly broad category in home design, so much so that it can sometimes be better to compare sconces and vanity lights to wall art. As rustic modern is a specific style, choosing wall lights that fall into this style is a great way to add personality and aesthetic to your home’s spaces. In many American Craftsman and rustic homes, wall lights are the finishing touch added to hallways, staircases, flanking fireplaces, and of course bathrooms and powder rooms.
Barn and lantern styles are the hallmarks of rustic modern design in the world of wall lighting. Pieces that evoke classic firelit lanterns and moodier interiors, full of dark wood and sturdy, hand-forged metals. There is certainly some industrial inspiration here, but drawing more from the minimalism and simplicity of that style rather than machine-made implications.
As for commonly found colors and finishes, blacks and bronzes dominate, with wood tones of course being incredibly common. Real wood construction is a little more rare with wall lights for durability and illumination’s sake, but wood toned finishes over metal construction are popular. In some instances, you can even find more natural materials, like mica, used for the shades, allowing subtle illumination perfect for creating comfortable mood lighting.
Outdoor Lighting That Brings Woodland Vibes Home
Every home, no matter how big or small, no matter what environment, needs outdoor lighting. These are the lights that guide you to your front door at night, light up any porches or patios, provide an element of safety by banishing dark corners, or make it safe to explore a garden or yard at night. You can find outdoor lighting of all types that fit into the rustic modern style, from wall lights, to post lights, and even to hanging lanterns like outdoor chandeliers.
Barn style lights are of course one of the more popular types of outdoor lights, designed to appeal to that truly rustic sensibility, feeling right at home in a woodland cabin or mountain lodge. Similar to the indoor categories discussed already, rustic modern outdoor lighting loves a good black or bronze finish, and embraces earth-tones to match the interior décor of any American Craftsman style home. Many designs also feature a hammered metal aesthetic or seedy glass panels, evoking that feeling of hand-crafted beauty with an eye for detail.
You can even find Dark Sky friendly fixtures within this style to help with light pollution. Dark Sky friendly fixtures direct lighting downwards, rather than sending it out ambiently, helping you experience the night sky just a little bit more than normal. While not as common, marine grade fixtures are also available, as not every outdoor light is designed to withstand coastal environments and saltwater exposure. Lastly, to really embrace that rustic lifestyle, Lamps Plus even carries a selection of gas lanterns that connect to your home’s gas line, creating the kind of beauty that can only come from real flame. However, care is absolutely required when installing and using these lanterns, so please consult a professional when it comes to installation.
Choose Your Style
There are so many styles to choose from, and Lamps Plus has them all! Keep an eye out for our other Choose Your Style articles as we explore Contemporary Modern, Coastal, and Traditional lighting. If you’d like to read our exposé all about Contemporary Modern and Coastal styles, check out the links below.