Deciding on a style for your kitchen can be an immense job; there are so many different styles to choose from. Apart from the cost, of course, the things that will govern your choice of kitchen style will be the age and type of your house, your the interior decorating style and the styles and colours that you prefer.
Taking a tour round a large DIY shop that sells kitchen, or a dedicated kitchen shop, will show the bewildering variety of styles on offer, from farmhouse cottage style to modern linear and minimalist and almost every possible combination in between.
Jump to:
Separates or a Fitted Kitchen?
A recent trend, if you have the available space, is to come away from the almost ubiquitous fully fitted kitchen and put together a kitchen from separate, freestanding units. This works best in an older house because the sort of freestanding furniture that is available for kitchen is invariable antique or reproduction. This is because virtually no-one has made anything other than fully fitted units for kitchens for the last fifty years, with the exception of the pine Welsh dressers. This makes the look rather expensive.
Assuming you’re staying with a fitted kitchen, then a traditional cottage style will work in an older property, as long as the original interior details have been kept in the rest of the house. If the house has been gutted of those features, then a modern kitchen is something that you could probably get away with. Otherwise leave modern streamlined kitchen styles to the loft apartments and contemporary homes as they will look like a fish out of water in a period property.
Take a Look at Italian Kitchen Style
Italian kitchens seem to be in a league of their own when it comes to style and design. There are shops in the UK where they have lines that are labelled Italian but it only takes five minutes surfing the web to realise that many are pale imitations of the real thing. Of course, there are Italian companies that make traditional and cheap ordinary kitchens too, but at the top of the market the curved streamlined cabinets are stunning.
In country properties Italian kitchens will have a different style, but the key is still about minimising housework so that there’s more time for socialising and enjoying family time. This means that whether traditional or modern, the cupboards and drawers have clean lines and are fuss free, everything is out of sight so there’s no tedious dusting to do. If you have the money, a top-line Italian kitchen is well worth a look.
Consider a Handmade or Bespoke Kitchen
Handmade or bespoke kitchens can inject a quality feel to a kitchen but tend to be a lot more expensive than an off-the-shelf kitchen. The advantage is that, to a certain extent, you can choose your own style. A handmade kitchen really come into it’s own in very old properties, where walls are unlikely to be straight and corners rarely anywhere near 90 degrees.
The fact that you will have the companies’ craftsmen on site for some days means that they will be able to take the time and trouble to make everything fit properly around the vagaries of the property. In this situation a bespoke kitchen is less likely to be much more expensive than buying one off the shelf and paying for people to shoehorn it in, and the quality will be so much higher.
