When you think of a country style kitchen, it invokes a cosy feel filled with the smell of bread baking and fresh herbs. It is the centre of the home and is somewhere that people want to visit and enjoy. Many sources tell us how to achieve the perfect country kitchen. It usually involves ripping out your current kitchen and starting again with a certain type of tile, kitchen press and counter top. This is certainly not going to happen in my case anyways as my husband would be gone with the kitchen, so it’s back to the drawing board.
I was having a think about it and wanted to give you some of my ideas on how to achieve that country look whilst retaining your current kitchen and therefore not breaking the bank.
Lovely Country Style Kitchen With Modern Twist
The most important thing to remember when achieving that country look is that the kitchen must look busy. It is the hub of your home and the way you use your accessories should display the activities that go on there. This can be achieved very easily without even taking out the DIY books :
1. Display Display Display
Display plates and crockery on shelves or through glass cabinet doors. Place spices, dried herbs, rice, pasta, spaghetti and other ingredients in attractive jars where they can be seen. The Home Barn is getting some lovely storgae jars in for the Autumn so watch out for them (shameless plug!!) Eggs look great in an egg basket also.
Tips:
- Depending on your presses, take off upper press doors and paint the press interiors a lovely pastel colour for immediate display shelving.
- Get out the DIY book and put some shelves on an empty wall. For the country look, I would suggest painting them.
2. PICTURES
pictures add a lovely stylish dimension to your country kitchen. Pictures of flowers or herbs work best and small grouped pictures work well also.
Tips:
- Keep an eye out for vintage or designer calenders, cut out the pictures and frame them yourself for an economical option.
3. FLOWERS:
Flowers are a very important feature of all country kitchens so bring the garden in with fresh flowers in your country kitchen. Place them in a lovely enamel or crockery jug on your kitchen table or place a lovely plant on your window sill.
Tip:
There are great fake flower alternatives available also if you have little fingers in your kitchen. Many home accessory stores and garden centres stock wild flower sprays or unbelievable fake options that you will have to touch and smell to tell the difference.
4. FRESH HERBS
Fresh herbs are another lovely feature of the country kitchen. Have a small herb garden outside your door or window where it can be seen and have some basil in pots on your window sill. This will really add to your ‘busy kitchen’ atmosphere. Oh and they taste great too!!!
Tip:
Basil tastes great in salads as well as in hot dishes. Toss in with your lettuce leaves. It’s gorgeous. It needs plenty of water when growing so don’t forget to water it!!
5. DISPLAY RECIPE AND HOUSE BOOKS
Displaying your cook books, gardening books, DIY and Interiors books looks great and makes your kitchen look very lived in and busy. They ususally have lovely colourful covers too so they look really well. Also it is very handy to have them on display and you will find that you uses them more as I for one tend to forget what books I have if they are packed away in a cupboard.
6. DISPLAY POTS AND SAUCEPANS
This is definitely one for the bigger kitchens. It looks great over and island or counter top and is very handy too as you are not rumaging in presses for pots and pans and if you’re like me you’ll always want the one tucked away right at the back!!
7. Your Kitchen Table
If you kitchen table is not really fitting in with your country theme, just cover it either with a cloth or oilcloth table cloth. Florals work great but stripes or polka dots are really nice too. A big bunch of flowers as covered already in the middle of your table also will really finish the look and you won’t recognise it.
I hope I have given you some economical ideas to change the look of your kitchen. Please tell us what you did to give your kitchen that lovely country feel or even better send us some pictures.
We’ll be back soon
Olive:-)
thehomebarn.ie 