Kitchen Design Gallery
A kitchen design gallery helps you know what’s hot in the interior design world, but what’s also achievable with real world spaces. Here are a few of my favorite Creative Commons Photos of real world kitchens. Some of the spaces are small but these are looks that you can obtain on a budget.
Usually when I think of cottage kitchens I tend to think of a lot of painted cabinetry. However, this next picture drives home the theme with checkerboard tile, lace curtains, lanterns, and an oversized range hood. Some inexpensive ideas from this are:
1. Fruit and herb accessories. Each grocery shopping trip becomes an entirely new art installation.
2. Wood cabinets that actually look feminine.
This is one of my favorite kitchen backsplashes ever. Usually I don’t like the modern design aesthetic but this has balance and it’s just plain awesome. Everything is so sleek that this is the perfect design for small spaces but the materials keep things interesting.
This kitchen is all about using old materials in new ways. Wsually stainless steel isn’t my thing but I really love these cabinets. Does wood on the floors seem too impractical? Put it on the ceiling instead.
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Ideas for Cottage Kitchens
Cottage kitchens are going to be an easier to live with version compared to the rustic design style. This can be slightly more feminine than the country design style but a little bit less feminine than the shabby chic design style. Since it does just focus on a lot of neutral materials it makes it perfect for a family kind of space. There are a few ways that you can still really drive home this theme.
One thing that you may want to consider doing is just going with a plain white cabinet. Usually wood cabinets are going to be more expensive. They are also going to be a lot more of a rustic style. The cottage design style really relies quite heavily on any kind painted finish. This is going to be one of the more difficult design projects that you’ll come across. It will take several weekends. However, it can completely transform a kitchen for just a few hundred dollars.
It’s also really important to mix and match painted finishes in cottage style kitchens. Usually this will mean that you might have a different color island or kitchen table. You could even do this quite simply on your barstools. In this case, you could just take the basic wood bar stools that are the least expensive and sand them down, prime them, and paint them. Add a country touch to the top with a monogram. Usually this would just be your family monogram but you could also try going with different color for each child. Another option would be to bring the entire cottage color palette together just on your barstools. If you already have a white kitchen in this case it’s going to use a lot of different tones. You could take the same basic barstool and paint it in a sage green, robin eggs blue, and cream.
You will run into a little bit of difficulty when you try to design the surfaces of your counters because these usually just seem too traditional or modern. This is especially true of the backsplash but just go for cleaner cottage kitchen ideas. You could take it into a patchwork kind of effect. This is going to be more of a country kind of effect. Using these standard sizes of tiles and finishes as well will save you a lot of money. However, if you’re just using a white tile then you need to add in accent tile. This can really be an embossed kind of finish.
You also have several options for the pattern on your island. This is really vital if you don’t have bead board. This can be the central focal point of your entire room. In this case, you could just try to create a lace effect. This is going to allow you to bring in an accent color. In addition to your more traditional cabinet color this also gives a vintage air which is especially important for the cottage kind of design style.
Your flooring is going to be another big design dilemma. If you are wanting a purely designer feel then wood floors are going to be the best option for you. We really see a lot of painted versions in designer magazines. This can be anything from a white and aqua to even a checkerboard pattern. However, it usually isn’t the most practical in a room with a lot of water so talk to a flooring professional first. Otherwise you’re probably going to want to stick with some version of natural stone or just a very convincing looking ceramic.
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