About

Joel Woodard

As an interior designer with feet in both urbane Manhattan and rural New Jersey, I wanted to write a blog about how both the rustic and the chic can live happily together.

Rustic Chic’s mission is to examine and report on those aspects of life – from interior design and fashion to food and music – that are a little less “slick”, but nevertheless as stylish as their city cousins.  Urbanity is not the sole possessor of chic.  Chic is not the sole provenance of urbanity.  “Chic” and “rustic” are not mutually exclusive.  Sounding high-tone?  I promise this will be the only lecture.

RC to me doesn’t mean “country” in the usual sense of the word or what most likely springs to mind at first mention, but its roots are firmly planted there.  (I actually prefer the term “pastoral” to “country”, but maybe that’s just semantics.)

On this blog, RC won’t show or discuss cliched images that conjure thoughts of “Green Acres”, “Andy Griffith”, “The Beverly Hillbillies” or other stereotypes.  So don’t look here for monster trucks or ‘gator wrestling.

My portrayal of RC will have an updated, modern slant with a young, traditional, simple and classically American vibe.  My RC will sometimes be dressed up, even formal at times (as when I look at some European influences), but it will always be honest, simple, strong, graphic and hard-working.

If you dig this kind of thing, are filled with inspiration and see limitless possibilities when you encounter almost-forgotten architectural gems or other things like this, then you’ll probably like the majority of posts I will publish here.

But as I mentioned earlier, we’re going to look at a lot of different things that I will call “rustic chic”.  Some may even be downright modern, but we’ll see how it holds together in context.  Sometimes I may even make a post that could be a far reach to call it “rustic chic” in any stretch of the imagination, but that will be part of the fun.

Thanks for visiting Rustic Chic.  I hope you will enjoy exploring things with me from a slightly different perspective.  Please subscribe to the blog and leave feedback.  I’d love to hear from you all.

Also please visit my websites:

www.joelwoodard.com

www.jdesignantiquesgarden.com