How to Create a Country French Kitchen

There are a few iconic items in the country French kitchen that you can get fairly inexpensively. You will want to stick within one basic theme when you choose this design style. There are two sides to it. One is more elegant and the other is more casual.

Elegant French Country Kitchens

This is going to be the direction you want to go in if you already have classic kitchens with a lot of black and white. Otherwise the white colors are going to seem a little bit too stark. However, then you’re going to need to bring in very iconic items. These include ceramic roosters as well as toile fabric. You can also get away with diamonds tones. Then it’s time to bring in a more casual design style. Try sanding down and distressing some of your wood furniture. You can still stay within the neutral color palette but just make it look more worn.

Casual Takes on This Design Style

More casual takes on this design style are going to include more muted color palettes. You probably won’t see black and white here. You might want to look for stainless steel appliances or have your cabinet maker create panels to go on top of special panel front appliances. These paneled appliances help keep within the vintage kind of feeling.

As far as your color palette goes look for a denim blue. Use this on your furniture. Then bring in lots of taupes and ivories. This can even work around ceramic tile that you may already have. Add in a few luxurious elements such as a tumbled tile backsplash and mini chandeliers. This is a way to personalize your basic taupe kitchen which seems to be the basic builders trend but not necessarily the decorating one.

This can be a way just to accessorize with true vintage pieces as well as reproductions. This could be a silver plate tea service if you want to make your room slightly more elegant. However, you can also just skip the more traditional items such as French country roosters in this case just because you do have such an antique inspired color palette. Then you can just look for clocks that mimic parchment paper. Oversized versions really aren’t that expensive. They can be the focal point of your entire room while keeping within the neutral color palette.

Remember to find subtle ways to continue this throughout your room. This may mean that you go with tea towels instead of lots of soap bottles You can look for decanters or even crystal dish soap dispensers instead of leaving a lot of the cleaning supplies out. Of course you will need to follow safety precautions if this is going to be around kids.

One direction that you wouldn’t initially think to take a country French kitchen is going to be to go with a contemporary kind of style. This can be very subtle such as bringing in a harlequin print on stainless steel backsplashes. You can also try bring in a funky chandelier that’s been painted turquoise. Look for lots of ornate gold frames that you can turn into chalkboards or bulletin boards. You can either paint these out in a dramatic black like the feminine basic gold. French style frames that are going to have a lot of scroll work on them. This was very popular in the 1970s so it’s readily available at a lot of thrift stores. You’re going to get a higher quality item and spend less money than you would at say Walmart. It’s very rare to find metal or even wood frames at the stores. Usually they will just be plastic even if they are quite expensive. This is why shopping for antiques can really make your entire room. Sure, it does take a little bit more time but it also is really going to give you that true French inspired feeling.

As far as your window treatments go you want to choose a pattern kind of fabric. If you already have kitchen blinds in your space then you might just go with an ornate valance. It should have a scalloped edge to it. This is one of the few styles where you’re still going to see floral prints. However, if you are using this very ornate style you can bring in more casual prints because this mixing of the two styles is very evocative of that country French feeling. Stay with Roman shades instead of typical wood window blinds.

Kitchen Decor Themes

Kitchen decor themes can be subtle if you want farmhouse kitchens. It can also be a lot more focused on crafts if you cannot really afford to buy new decorative accessories. Here are a few new trends in your typical themes.

Cow Hide Kitchen Décor

Cow kitchen decor is going to really fit within the country kind of theme. However, making it chic can be a little bit difficult. It’s not entirely impossible. In this case you want to find fabrics that mimic real cowhide instead of your typical cotton pieces. This will also make it easier to clean. Use this on your barstools. If you’re going for easy to care for then handpainted linoleum is going to be pretty inexpensive and easy to clean up instead of typical square cut rug in the actual shape of an animal hide.

Fabric Inspirations

If you really want a kitchen that is easy to live with then try the inspiration of denim. This is a very casual design style. You could pair it with very chic gray cabinets. However, you could also just go with a denim blue on your cabinets for more of the country look. You could be quite literal with this and make denim placemats. However, you could also just look for some slate tile to use on your backsplash that brings in this tone and more casual texture.

Coffee Kitchen Décor

Coffee themed kitchen décor usually just subsists of a lot of different wall plaques. However, you can be a lot less literal with this design style. You could even draw inspiration from your favorite brew for your wall color or your cabinet color. You could also try to make artwork from French style coffee bags. This is important because burlap kind of materials are very popular and trendy right now. You can still find ways to work this with in your theme. Of course your basic Foldgers bag will probably be pretty useless.

You can also use this to create extra storage. In this case if you’re short on space, try under the cabinet hooks. If you do have extra counter space then you can get a freestanding version that can match your paper towel holder.

Grape Kitchen Décor

Grape kitchen decor is something that we see quite a lot of and can look a little bit outdated. Skip wallpaper borders and ceramic tiles. You don’t need to do any ivy or grape stenciling on the walls. Instead be inspired by the color palette. Initially when you think about grapes you might think “oh purple and green that isn’t just for me”. However, when you really look closely at grapes you’re going to see a lot of silvers and grays in the leaves which can make for a very interesting color palette that’s still neutral. You could also either create or buy drawer pulls made out of corks. In fact this could even be a lot more subtle in your room if you went for cork tile flooring. This is at home in vintage kitchens or classic kitchens as well.

Strawberry kitchen decor can at times be a little bit cheesy. It might be a little bit too country for you. One way to work around this would be to use it as your color inspiration. You could decorate with a bright red island. You can also look for enamel pots which are pretty popular right now and displaying them on a basic pot rack is going to be less expensive than more traditional copper pots that we see in this usage.

Decor for Kitchen Use

Decor for kitchen use needs to be practical as well as affordable. Oftentimes when you are doing a kitchen remodel there’s a tendency to go over budget both as far as money and time goes. This means that you might not have any money or time left for your decorative kitchen accessories. Instead, you can just create a few of these items yourself or spruce up some thrift store finds.

Remember to be practical. You could use old antique knobs underneath the lip of the shelf to create a hanging space for your aprons. You could even use this for dishtowels. This gives you decorative storage. It also has a slightly vintage feel which is perfect if you want to get the look of farmhouse kitchens.

Handpainting can save you tons of money especially on your kitchen nook furniture. If you want a French country kind of theme then go for checked patterns. This also allows you to use a lot of mismatched chairs so it’s perfect if you’re shopping on a budget or at a thrift store. If you wanted more of a Spanish style kitchen then bring in lots of bold oranges and yellows. This could be a faux mosaic tile but it could also go in a more Italian direction if you paint a farmhouse scene on top of your table; just don’t forget the red tile roof.

You also might want to mimic wood. This isn’t the most convincing if you’re trying to do it on your cabinets just because they are such large surfaces and it’s very difficult to get a unified look from door to door. However, again on your furniture you might be able to try to go with a faux inlay, which is really going to add dimension and tie a lot of the different colors of your cabinets together. This is really important if you have a smaller space and want to keep your wood cabinets as is but you just want a slightly more elegant look in your room.

One staple item in a lot of kitchens is just going to be your basic pine or oak barstool that doesn’t have a back on it. It’s also going to be your least expensive option when you go shopping you can even find it at a lot of thrift stores. You can make this over with paint. If you have an all white kitchen then bring in a bright red. This will be a lot easier to live with than having red walls but is still does lend a lot of color into your room.

You can also recover the seat of these items because at times this does tend to get damaged depending on the style of stool that you have. You might be able to upholster it. Just make sure that you choose a fabric that is easy to clean.

Another option for the seats of barstools is going to be decoupage medium. Then it’s going to be pretty easy to clean as is or wipe off as opposed to fabric. Look for fun paisley prints that are both retro and fit in classic kitchens at the same time.

As far as artwork goes decoupaging medium can really come into play. You can try wood plaques. Another option would be to create decoupage plates. These won’t be safe for food use and you can’t run them through the dishwasher, but it can be purely decorative to hang on your walls. You might want to just make sure that you seal them so that it holds and check your decoupaging medium to make sure that it’s okay for use over ceramics.

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At stores like Anthropologie fork chandeliers are pretty popular. However, you might not have thousands of dollars to spend on them. This is one of the better diy projects that I could find. I also think it would be interesting if you could find a rectangular frame to hang over your kitchen island.