Defining Your Kitchen Style
Whatever lifestyle you favor, the kitchen is typically the most frequently used room in the home. For this reason, it deserves special care and attention, especially when defining your kitchen style.
For many, the kitchen is the heart or hub of the home, often with a distinctive style of its own. Not everyone adopts a specific style for their home and garden, preferring instead to incorporate individual design elements in their own way. However, if you’ve chosen a particular style for the rest of your home, ensure your kitchen complements that look. If you haven’t, consider renovation projects to define your kitchen’s style. These could involve repainting, redecorating, or completely transforming the space by refitting cupboards and cabinets. Carefully consider all options before starting work or purchasing items.
Choosing a Kitchen Style
Numerous well-defined decorative styles exist, ranging from traditional to contemporary. Adopting a specific style and drawing inspiration from others’ interpretations provides a solid starting point for your new-look kitchen and home. From there, you can add your personal touch.
If your house suggests a style, even if your décor doesn’t reflect it, that’s another starting point. Consider the physical characteristics, such as floors and walls. For example, a high-tech, modernistic kitchen pairs well with sleek ceramic tiles rather than rustic quarry tiles or stone. Conversely, a country cottage with rough walls won’t suit that genre.
While kitchens require practical, safe, and durable surface finishes, the room’s character and style don’t need to be modern and streamlined. For instance, a farmhouse or cottage kitchen can feature safe, practical surfaces while maintaining a charming rustic look.
The kitchen’s style is also influenced by its size, shape, and functions. A spacious kitchen with room for a table where family and friends can gather naturally leans toward an authentic farmhouse look. A long, narrow kitchen may require a more contemporary or modernistic approach. For open-plan kitchens, ensure the style aligns with the rest of the house.
Here are a few ideas to help define your kitchen style:
Cottage
Unlike cottage-style gardens, rooted in 19th-century Britain, the cottage-style interior lacks historical origins and isn’t widely recognized by professional designers, likely due to its “cheap and cheerful” nature. Ideal for DIY enthusiasts with smaller homes who prefer a fresh, romantic look, cottage-style kitchens are cozy and adaptable to various shapes and sizes, provided furnishings and surfaces suit the style. Pastel colors work well for paint and pretty curtains or blinds. If space allows, cover a small table with a colorful tablecloth and place a vase of flowers on top. Instead of storing fresh fruit and vegetables in cupboards or the refrigerator, display them in a large wooden or pottery bowl.
Avoid excessive clutter, but a touch of bric-a-brac on shelves and old (not necessarily valuable) china plates displayed on walls are acceptable. Choose a color and pattern theme, and enjoy adding to it over time.
Country
Inspired by English, French, or American country styles, this timeless look is more sophisticated than cottage style, with a slightly shabby, elegantly faded aesthetic. Ideally, a country-style kitchen is large, with flagstone or quarry tile flooring. Blue and yellow are popular colors, introduced through wall tiles or paint. Large windows with patterned curtains complement the style. Kitchen units can be modern, perhaps lime-washed wood, but avoid cottagey pine or veneer.
Limit clutter, but copper kettles or horse brasses add visual appeal. Fresh flowers in large glass vases on countertops or tables enhance charm and vibrancy.
Mediterranean
Best suited for warmer coastal regions with a Mediterranean-like climate, this style fits spacious homes with open-plan kitchens, creating a light, airy feel that emphasizes outdoor living. Ceilings may be plain or fitted with reeds, and floors look authentic with terracotta quarry tiles or simulated stone. Shuttered windows are ideal; otherwise, use bamboo or slatted blinds, as curtains may look out of place.
Colors are simple yet vibrant, with white-washed walls and a touch of blue or dusky Grecian green on window frames. A central island and open shelves with plastered brick and baskets work well. Avoid clutter, but display fruit, vegetables, herbs, and flowers as natural decorations, even incorporating fresh food as decorative accessories.
Farmhouse
Similar to the country kitchen, a farmhouse-style kitchen is friendly, informal, and lived-in, welcoming animals and children without concern for muddy paws or sticky fingers. This style shines in the kitchen, with fresh herbs in pots, dried herbs, and flowers hung from wooden beams. A wooden dresser or wall-mounted shelves filled with preserves, pickles, homemade jams, and decorated with pretty china or stenciled enamel plates enhance the look.
A separate pantry stocked with baskets, preserves, and essential appliances is ideal. Colors should be fresh but subtle, avoiding the brightness of country kitchens. Include informally arranged, freshly picked (preferably homegrown) flowers in jugs or vases. A wooden table is essential, serving as a gathering place for meals or where children can do homework, making this kitchen the true hub of the home.
Victorian
Perfect for period homes, this style draws from existing surfaces like pressed steel or tongue-in-groove ceilings, wooden strip or mosaic tile floors, and wood-paneled or tiled walls. Victorian-era tiles are distinctive, but walls can also be wallpapered or painted.
Clutter defines a successful Victorian-style kitchen, with bric-a-brac, old kitchen gadgets, Chinese vases, ginger jars, and pots with herbs or ferns on display. Deep reds and greens, popular in the mid-Victorian era, can be accented with stenciled designs below the cornice or at dado height. Books with Victorian-style stencils are available, or you can create your own based on well-known designs.
Since electricity wasn’t available in the mid-Victorian era, gas stoves or a wood-fueled Aga are ideal for authenticity.
High-Tech
A high-tech kitchen embraces minimalism with clean lines, few colors, and no clutter, emphasizing stainless steel. Appliances like the stove, refrigerator, toaster, and kettle take center stage, with a metallic steel finish preferred, though black or white can work.
This style draws inspiration from Le Corbusier, the Swiss architect who championed functional design in the Modern Movement of the early 1930s, viewing the house as “a machine” for living. The kitchen embodies this philosophy more than any other room.
