Antique Kitchen Island

Antique Kitchen Island

Creating a country kitchen design means having a casual, friendly kitchen space with some antiques or reproductions where family and friends can gather to enjoy wonderful dinners and great conversation. No longer just a place to prepare meals, the kitchen may function as the most popular room in your home.

When creating a country kitchen design, you should feature natural materials and colors and have comfortable furnishings that are warm and welcoming. Country kitchen examples are to use open shelves, plate racks and cupboards for storage for items such as stoneware pots, glazed earthenware, baskets and glass jars. Your antique or reproduction plates and dinnerware collections can also be displayed on open shelving. Pots should be made of copper, cast iron or stainless steel without ornamentation.

Cabinets can be made with aged planked surfaces, natural materials with a rough or distressed finish and round or ceramic knobs that will add to the country style. Cabinets or furniture made of a painted, distressed or naturally-finished pine can be a beautiful key element in country kitchen design.

The materials and their colors used for the floor and countertop are important elements to have a country look. For the countertops, use ceramic tiles, hand-painted tiles, slate, stone or marble. If you decide to use laminate countertop materials, select plain colors for coverings. Terracotta tiles, brick, stone and wood are popular flooring materials in country kitchen floors.

Since most home buyers consider kitchen islands an essential part of a desirable kitchen, be sure to include one in your country kitchen design. The island in the kitchen reminds us of the farmhouse kitchen where the work table was used to do most of the food preparation work. If space is very limited, consider choosing a rolling butcher block that can be moved to the most convenient location as needed.

If there is space for kitchen furniture, consider using some antiques or reproductions in your kitchen. And the antiques do not have to be perfect. If chips and scratches exist, all the better since these imperfections only will add to the charm and unrestored look of the furniture. Having some wear and tear to maintain the country kitchen design flavor is fun and it works!

The country look is always rustic, old and warm and colors used in this style of home decor must be selected carefully. Neutral colors such as white or bone can work well as can earth tones, red barn, blues and greens. All are appropriate colors for country-style home decor.

Country home decorating frequently uses stenciling and wallpaper. Stenciling can be used around windows, in the areas where the walls and ceiling meet or even on the floors. Stenciling also can be used effectively on furniture to add charm to a country-style home decor.

To really create a great look, you can even add a fireplace to your kitchen for a charming country-style home decor look. You will find you have many to choose from including free-standing ventless fireplaces that can be simply positioned where you want.

Planning is an important part of country kitchen design before you actually do the work. Organize your ideas in a notebook as you accumulate them. Have fun as you go through books and magazines, visit local showrooms and search online for country kitchen examples and ideas that you like.

Well-designed unique country kitchens add value to homes. Even if you do not intend to sell your home anytime soon, having a country kitchen design that reflects your personal style means you will have a very special place to enjoy for many years to come.

Copyright 2007 InfoSearch Publishing

About the Author:

Learn more kitchen design online ideas and how to decorate country style. David Lee Buster is VP of InfoSearch Publishing and webmaster of http://www.yourdreamloghome.com - a popular website for those who love homes.

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - Country Kitchen Design - Tips for Creating Unique Country Kitchens

Kitchen cabinet paint and color question?

We want to paint our kitchen cabinets. Some are old, some newer, a little plywood. Cabinets are oak with lots of grain. Not sure if antiquing to show some of the grain would cover all cabinets evenly. Husband does not want to do any sanding but we want all cabinets to match. Our granite counter and island top is Moon River which is kind of a cream color with lots of streaks of grey, large splotches and streaks of rust and dotted spots of purple. (It really is gorgeous). We like country style. Our floors are oak too. Any suggestions re paint type and color for the cabinets would be appreciated. Thanks.
Thanks for all your answers. Your suggestions and web sites were really great and will be helpful in making that final decision.

play around with the Sherwin Williams color visualizer to find colors that you like. It is the best paint visualizer on the web, imho. I like how their color palette is laid out, I like that you can search by color family & color name, the "painted" rooms look the most realistic, and it suggests coordinating color schemes. You can literally spend hours:
http://www.sherwin.com/visualizer/

I think "natural tan" (# 7567) might be a great choice.

You can take a photo of your house & upload it to the makeover gallery on this website:
http://www.roomvues.com/
You can get color suggestions & for $5 they'll photoshop them onto your room so that you can get an idea of what it will look like

kitchen ming chinese antique bowl plate pottery ceramic - authentic or not?