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[blank]Came across these pictures in a French magazine recently, I think it was Maison de Campagne, but can’t be sure.[blank]
[blank]Many people today are looking for an alternative to the squeaky clean fitted kitchen, preferring free standing pieces and a more simple, country look.[blank]
[blank]But here I’m wondering, is this a step too far or, on the contrary, does it give an authentic country feel?
I have a favourite picture, but I’m curious to know if you would pick the same. [blank]
[blank]You know that I’d love to hear what you think,
so tell me please:
like/unlike[blank]
65 comments
My favorite, the top photo with the chalkboard. Love that. Love your blog.
Love love love!! It's hard to pick a favorite but I would say 3 & 4 are at the top of the list!
LOVE this look! My favorite ones are the first and third pictures. I think you have to be careful when you go this route so it doesn't look too cluttered or unfinished, but at the same time I prefer interiors with a "sense of self" and charm rather than the homes that look as though a designer put it all together or that it came out of a catalog.
Sorry like them all, but if I had to choose, it would be the one with the table of food, simply as I would love to sit down to eat now as I'm hungry! Also it's a spacious kitchen, which I would love! Love the colours of pictures 2 and 3. Cupboard in pic 1 is sublime, and would love big doors to the outside like that. Love your blog! Cc
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Sharon, I like to juxtapose a little old with a little new, so that you get the perfect balance between the two – plus what the vintage and contemporary elements create together are more than they could do on their own. My person favorite photo here is the 3rd one. The first is lovely, too! Curious what your favorite is.
Too far? I don't think so. I love this look, finding the perfection of most modern kitchens cold and clinical. But then, I am biased: I have an ebonized Victorian kitchen dresser in my tiny kitchen in Manhattan, over-which hangs an ebonized Aesthetic period china cabinet. I'd snap the blue number up in a second!
I like the look, but I don't think I could live with it. I like more streamlined surfaces in the kitchen, but I'd love one old piece to hold dishes on display. I think it adds texture and interest.
I love the look for me it would not keep things clean; I prefer most of my dishes behind glass doors. But for a certain type of home this would be fabulous. One thing that is wonderful is the return to the large certain table for food prep and dining ~ practical and fabulous.
I like it very much!
I love coming to your blog each morning and seeing all of the beautiful pictures and reading your imaginings! I've been "lurking" for some time. 😉 I think these are lovely ideas, in the right home and a particular setting. Provided the pieces are clean (and have no odd odors… you never know about their past lives!), they can provide instant warmth and character. My favorite – the shelving unit in the first picture, housing the dishes, glassware, and even the wine! Very charming and practical in that it seems to provide tons of storage. Thanks for sharing!
I like all, but maybe not the 2nd so much as that might be *too* rustic for me. I have a 150+ yo farmhouse and updating the kitchen in "modern rustic" would look pretty ridiculous. I like the three painted hoosier type cupboards. My hoosier serves as the pantry. And the barn lighting has a period look too. For me though, the kitchen is more about function and less how it looks.
Oh, country kitchens are coming back. I love them. They were the thing here in the US during the eighties and nineties. Primitives we call the pieces. I love them.
I really like this style of kitchen, the third from the top being my fav. However, being an insane clean freak, all these pictures scream to me are 'dust'! I'm in the process of having my new fitted kitchen installed at the moment, I chose to have things in cupboards rather than on display for the entirely practical reason that I couldn't stand to spend all day every day dusting! Love in everyone else's homes though!
Like! I have an unfitted kitchen myself. Just a hoosier cabinet, an old metal sink cabinet with drainboards on both sides, an enamel top table as an island, a cabinet with glass doors, a vintage metal cart by the stove, and a little pantry closet.That's it for storage and work surfaces. Works perfectly almost all the time (Thanksgiving dinner is a bit of a stretch). It's an old kitchen with a fireplace and back stairs. It didn't have cabinets when we bought the place and we liked it that way. I like all of the pictures you posted – I guess the first and third most.
I like the first one, especially – it reminds me of a kitchen in Paris where I took cooking classes once – very efficient, neat, and tidy. Everything has a place. And you can fin it!!! 😉 I like the next two also – lots of character. I think the fourth looks a bit redundant.
I love it. I live in an old home here in the states and repurposed my bedroom drawers as a kitchen storage/buffet. It gives it charm. I say it's a must!
Cheers!
http://www.champagnesundayliving.com
I like the first one, lots of shelves easily accessible. And the third is good, too. The second seems too higgledy-piggledy for my taste (dry sinks are charming but not awfully useful for storage), and the fourth makes me think of a line-up in a resale shop. I'd love to do something along these lines, but am stuck for the time being with fitted cabinets (although they're being repainted, as improvement).
The first and fourth photos! Such charm: my very tidy American kitchen, with it's wall-to-wall cabinets is rather boring compared to these.
While I like #1, I don't think I could live with all my dishes out in the open like that… the main reason being nothing of mine is matching, lol. I'd also be worried about them getting dusty. I do like the lighting and the table a lot though. #2 is definitely not my taste, much too old-fashioned country. I would really enjoy #3 quite a bit, although I would change out the bench for chairs for more relaxing seating for after dinner conversations. I don't like being all slumped over leaning on the table which is what happens when I sit on a bench! #4 has way too much going on!
Love the look but I couldn't live with any of them.
Gives me the shivers just thinking about all the dust and grease in the 1st photo.
I do adore the 3rd photo and would love to sit at that table with friends!
Dear Sharon, There is no way I can decide. I love all of them. But if I had to choose for myself it would be No. 3. I like the open feeling.
Love this look! Love number 1 most and 3 comes in second. I too like the chalkboard wall and all that small storage shelving.. it looks really authentic and country! Thanks for sharing! Love your blog! -Jen
Number 4 would be the one for me. I love the soft greens and creams, and also the high ceiling and soft light. I would hope, though, that they have a large island or some other, larger, form of counter space than what these cabinets have. In our kitchen we have new painted wood cabinets (from the big box store to fit our budget), but added two antique pieces. One an oak pantry cupboard, and another is a marble-topped oak buffet in place of a work island. It is so warm and cheerful and yet practical. Number three – there is no space to get their knees under that table!
I love this alternative to the too shiny, modern look. I can't choose a favorite – I want them all!
Interesting Sharon…..this is a look that I so appreciate, but I do prefer a more 'modern country' look for my own home. If I had to choose, it would definitely be number 3, a great table and benches to gather with family and friends, and the gorgeous cool greys that I love.
Sophia x
I LOVE the look and know first hand that this type of kitchen can easily be functional if put together well. I think conventional builders kitchens waste space and money and are too cookie cutter, lacking personality. Who wants to have to get on a ladder or step stool in their 60s and older, to get stuff out of cabinets you can't reach? I don't want to do that even in my current early 50s.
Mmm I like the second photo with the soft bleu and wooden wall and table it gives a lot of warm feelings to me, I love this!
groetjes van Marijke
Fitst picture. I Like them all!
Thank you for THE beautiful pictures
Love these pics !!! and Yes to the last one , the hanging lights are fabulous
I love the first and third pictures! Gorgeous! xxoo
I love number 3 and 4 – very unique – love the rustic look
Love the shelving unit in the first picture. So easy and simple to work with. Less cupboard doors to open the better I say!
Is love an option???? Love the first photo!
xoxo
Kathleen
Pic 3 for me 🙂 not too over the top
My decision is definitely No. 1 pic. Sooo beautiful.
Bonjour,
Des cuisines spacieuses comme je les aime où l'on peut cuisiner, recevoir et rire ensemble tous…
Gros bisous
Too country for me, although I do like the new/old idea of a kitchen table instead of an island.
I'm hedging on the third & the first but mostly the third. I love the look but only for a 2nd home. I grew up with kitchens like this but not sure if on a day to day practical way that I could do this…do Love though.
I love EVERYTHING about the first one… the shelving, blackboard wall, lights and table! Carolyn
I love reusing older furniture and using it in new ways. In order I like 1, 3 and 2. The last picture is too shabby chic for me.
I'm currently planning a very modern kitchen to replace my current kitchen which is made up of old dressers, plate racks and lots of open storage. My house is 1880s but I think very modern can look equally good in an old house. My current kitchen just doesn't meet my needs as a very keen cook with lots of gadgets, it has become too 'shabby chic' and has been damaged by my two sons (12 and 13 year olds). Of the ones above I would choose the third one, perhaps for a holiday home.
If you ask me, I'd packed my bags and moved here:-)
Oh……in one of these foo-foo "Living in ______" (it';s always either Provence or Paris or Tuscany, isn't it?) coffee-table books that pile up around this house (I get sent a lot of "review copies" that I never review), there's one which rapturously describes, over several pages, the fabulous, un-locatable country home of some un-named French director. Apparently, the man and his wife/consort keep the place so that they can GET AWAY FROM IT ALL!!!!!…..ESCAPE INTO THE SIMPLICITY OF COUNTRY LIVING!!!!!
The photograph of their kitchen is accompanied by breathlessly excited descriptions of the long refectory table (bought at an estate in Ireland, of course), the collection of wall-hung majolica plates, and the converted, 19th century pharmacy-cabinets from some terribly unknown (but no doubt expensive) village near their OTHER "getaway" country-home in Corsica or deepest Dordogne.
All in all (and I really enjoy this book when I need a chuckle), one gains the impression that this couple keeps at least ten folks busy with buying stuff for themin various pricey locales….which the owners, engrossed in their quest for "simplicity", never return to actually see. My favorite picture of the kitchen shows a big chalk-board over the stove, on which the owners have OH!-so-casually scrawled the week/end's activities.
One can clearly read, from across this whole-room perspective, "Madonna–lunch Tuesday" and "T.Cruise weekend arr. Sat". I kid you not.
I'm lucky if I can keep a minimally decipherable grocery list magnetted to the refrigerator door.
—-david terry
http://www.davidterryart.com
Hello Sharon, Lovely to join in with your conversation. I like 3 and 4, pretty pieces that are very practical. I would need a good stepladder to help me reach the top shelves!! The long tables look very inviting and would be fun to decorate for family and friends. best wishes, Amanda
I love the 3rd image down.
pve
I love the look of the open cupboards but past experience has taught me that I prefer to keep everything behind doors ( glass is ok) as I also don't want to spend my time cleaning those items that aren't used every day. I'm currently altering the kitchen in my house in south west France and I'm mixing basic Ikea cupboards with recycled timber and metal shelves and industrial style lighting. Hope it's practical as well as attractive. My friends will tell me, I'm sure. Adore your blog and can't get enough.
Love no. 1 but could also live with no. 3.
Sorry I am anonymous but don't know how to set up a profile. I look at these & think DUST ∨ GREASE. I would need a cleaner to keep them spotelss. I was brought up in house with an 'unfitted' kitchen – the norm in those days – woildn't want to go back to that.
I would choose the picture of the table ready to serve…
#1 has my vote. xxpeggybraswelldesign.com
#1 has my vote as well. Not over-the-top rustic, love the chalkboard. However, I do love the different style cupboards in #4- just not all in a row!
Like! Love the three distressed dressers!
No. 3 & 4 are my favorite. All great ideas. Loving the lighting over the table in #3 picture, table ready to sit at and enjoy a meal.
White on white on white…that's for me!
I came back to look at these pictures because I love them all! I took down and gave away my kitchen cabinets recently. I'm not certain exactly what I'm going to do in their place, but it won't be "normal." I love the look of fitted cabinetry (above) and will probably try to do something along these lines. So many beautiful ideas!
I love the look and if my kitchen wasn't so tiny would love to do something like it. The first and third pictures are my favourite. What's yours ?
The first and third are so lovely! While we've been waiting to remodel our kitchen we've been living with a very unfitted style which was NOT the original plan. Several years, meals, and parties later our friends, family members, and all our children's friends beg us not to take out the antique dressers, paintings, crockery and open shelves that have been so much a part of memorable gatherings. We'll continue to tweak it (and deal with the dust and extra cleaning), but I'm guessing that wall-to-wall units are not in our future any more!
J'aime réellement la 3ème, d'ailleurs elle ressemble un peu à la mienne.
I love all of your pics but feel they are more suited to a cottage than a city home. I used untreated beaded board as my backsplash and feel that was a nice added country touch to my otherwise classic country kitchen. Over the 12 yrs it has taken on a nice patina. It's a lot warmer than marble or subway tile.
I love the rustic look, that picture of the bench at the table is my favorite.
I like the look, but I think it has to be in a house that fits that style. Forcing this kind of look on any old kitchen could be a disaster. Since I have a dog that sheds and don't like to clean all the time, I wouldn't want all open shelves, but I do like to have some. I find I tend to use things more when I can see them
I find this look a little too contrived like the owners are trying too hard to be authentic. Some of the items in the pictures are very desirable but the rooms themselves really don’t work for today’s living in my opinion.
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