Cozy and relaxed, everyone seems to love a classic farmhouse or cottage-style kitchen, and with good reason. The farmhouse/cottage style is reminiscent of simpler times when life was less rushed and families spent time gathering around the table. Farmhouse cottage style is a beautiful thing: old finds look great alongside new ones, there are no hard and fast decorating rules, and furniture doesn’t have to match. In fact, matched sets do not embody the collected-over-time feeling so desired in country style homes.
Let’s Take a Look at Some Farmhouse Kitchen Essentials
White Cabinets
For starters, white cabinets. White cabinets are anything but boring when they’re warmed up with some wood tones and/or some color. You can do pretty much anything you want with a white kitchen, and provided you keep your cabinetry simple (shaker style), it will never go out of style.
White Countertops
Next up, white countertops. Consider using plain white quartz, like Caesarstone Pure White, if you want other decorative elements to take center stage in your kitchen. If you prefer to draw attention to your beautiful countertops, try a quartz that looks like marble but without the maintenance and stress. If you’re really laid back and don’t mind wear and tear, water marks, etching, and some staining, by all means go for the real deal. There is nothing more beautiful than carrara marble. Check out our post to see if marble is right for you.
Pretty Fabrics
Choose some pretty fabrics for your counter stools. While there is absolutely nothing wrong with wood or metal stools at the island, sometimes that extra touch of pattern is just what your cottage farmhouse kitchen needs. Choose a washable denim fabric that can be washed, and you can’t go wrong. Our beautiful mini roses add some real cottage charm to our farmhouse kitchen.
Painted or Wooden Island
If you’re worried your white kitchen will be too stark, warm it up with a light wood island or an island painted a pretty color. Ours is Benjamin Moore Palladian Blue, which isn’t quite blue and isn’t quite green. It’s such a versatile color and goes with way more than you may think, from pretty pastels to reds and even orange, yellow, and fresh green.
Open Shelving
Open shelving isn’t just for displaying pretty objects. Your white everyday dishes can mingle comfortably with your glassware if you’re worried about a shortage of cupboard space. Of course if you have plenty of storage space, open shelving is the perfect way to display your favorite collections or farmhouse decor. We just love our GreenGate!
A Hutch
If you have room in your kitchen for a hutch, you’re really fortunate. If you’re lucky enough to be building a brand-new kitchen or are renovating, consider making your hutch with cabinet-depth drawers. This will give you so much extra storage space you may not have considered. This is the ideal spot for large roll out drawers to store your dishes, large dinner plates, and oversized platters.
Sensible Spice Storage
Finally, consider installing a spice drawer. Ours is right under our cooktop and has risers to elevate our spices for easy viewing and storage. We ordered handy spice jars from Amazon complete with labels for alphabetical organization.
The Key to a Classic Kitchen
As we always say, there are no hard and fast rules for cottage and farmhouse kitchen decor, but we like to offer general guidelines. You can certainly choose cabinetry in other lovely colors, and countertops in colors other than white and still achieve a gorgeous farmhouse kitchen. Nothing is more versatile than a classic white farmhouse cottage kitchen. You won’t regret your decision to keep things simple. If you would like to schedule a consultation with us to design your farmhouse or cottage style kitchen, contact us!
Until next time…