The English Countryside Kitchen

Do you like to see how we transformed this kitchen into an English countryside kitchen? Well, let’s dive right in!

So this kitchen in particular, what we were going for was a really primitive style kitchen with a bit of an English countryside twist. So we’re looking at painted cabinetry, really classic styling, and not too much of the more fancy things that you see today, like veiny quartz. None of that, right? None of the really fancy subway tiles or anything like that, none of the more modern stylings. We’re keeping it really primitive and countryside.

This is the view of the kitchen before. And let’s take a look here at the new proposed layout.

So as we were going through this, we’re really looking at doing more of a U shaped kitchen with a peninsula. The client found that they didn’t really love their island. They would rather have more of a U shaped kitchen. The island was really deep and you couldn’t really get into the things that were inside of it, and they wanted a bit more storage. So by closing it off, we were able to get a few more cabinets in there. We were also able to add in some pantry storage on either side of the window over here by shifting over the beautiful table that they already had in this space.

Now let’s take a look at this view, the view with the sink wall. So the sink and the dishwasher are currently on this wall. We wanted to keep that. You can see these cabinets actually we’re incredibly old, but they were very inexpensive that the previous owners had put in. And inexpensive cabinets, this is what can happen over time. Unfortunately, doors start falling off, drawers start falling off, especially when you have a lot of heavy things in the kitchen. And storage is obviously an issue in here, right? There’s a lot out on the countertops. There was a lot out on the island and that’s simply because they didn’t really have great space inside of this kitchen. So we wanted to solve for that for them.

They loved their plate rack, but the plate rack wasn’t super functional because as you can see, it wasn’t really deep enough to properly store the plates safely. And so they’re just sort of… They’re in there, but they’re not in there that well. I was a little bit nervous even going around that space.

Colour-wise, we went with kind of a chalky blue. So it’s not really a Navy blue. It’s really more of like a chalky kind of colour and probably even lighter than what the rendering shows at. Up above, we did a plate rack and some shelves, open shelves here for things like bowls, all of the things that you’re going to sort of grab and go as you’re leaving. Kept the dishwasher in the same spot. And the sink that we ended up going with is more of a granite sink. So I think that’s going to be really beautiful in this space. It’ll pull in to the walnut butcher block on this bank of cabinetries really super well. They did have this bulkhead above that we ended up keeping so that we could bring the cabinets right up.

Since it was a high vaulted ceiling, this allowed the cabinets to kind of sit all the way up to the top with that dust collector up top, and just opened up on either side for some dropdown lighting, which allowed us to maximize storage down to the countertops here on either side. So this right here is a great spot where they can kind of lift it up, put small appliances, like a toaster, blender, that sort of thing. And all of this peninsula here is just banks and banks of drawers, tons of doors for lots and lots of storage. So that every single little thing is accounted for.

Now, I know that we did go back and forth with some revisions with the client. The layout changed every so slightly in here, but the overall concept is the same.

Now on this wall, back here, we did a tile that is very, very textured and hand crafted. So it’s not a perfect square subway tile, it really has a lot more texture and variation to it because varying the finishes in this space is going to be the key to creating that really vintage look that the clients really loved.

So popping into the fridge and stove wall here, and taking a look at that, this is where we could do something just a little bit different. Now, this wall ended up changing a little bit with some of the client’s requests and needs after, but kind of that cornerstone of an English countryside kitchen is the mantle over the range, right? So this was something that we were able to create for them in this space, a spice ledge here up above the stove and varying out our textures here as well. So doing more of a brick tile backsplash down here, again, bringing in a lot of texture into the space with more of a winged Scott sort of look or bead board look here above that.

You cannot do bead board down to a stove. It’s a fire hazard. It’s not going to meet fire code. And so we brought that up by utilizing the brick underneath to create that minimum clearance. So that safety wasn’t going to be an issue, while also putting a great spice ledge out there for the most common used spices. This client had a really good collection of spices. So we wanted to make sure to give them a great spot for that, as well as some grabbing goes for her cast iron pot. So obviously, the heavier pieces would go down low, where it was easy to grab, and then other things would go up top that maybe they don’t use as often.

The other thing that this client really loves is to have things out, have it really feel like a home and feel like things are collected over time. Being able to display all the great artwork and antique pieces that they’ve collected over time. So this little mantle really allows for that, right? You can add some potteries of artwork up there, some mugs, all of that kind of great thing right there.

Now, you’ll notice the countertops on these two surfaces are more of a solid surface quartz countertop, and that is really for ease of use, cleanability, resale, those sorts of things. And we stuck to the butcher’s block only on the peninsula side. Butcher’s block does not do great around water. It does require a good amount of maintenance. If you are into woodworking and things like that yourself, and you’re able to strip it and sort of deal with it at that point. But we wanted to make the kitchen as low maintenance as possible. So we found a really great stone that is not too crisp and white, but really had subtle movement in it and could still give that vintage vibe.

So if we sort of go through this view over here into the peninsula, this is where banks and banks of drawers, as well as a little bookcase here on the end for all the clients cookbooks and things like that. And then, you get a sneak peek here of kind of some of the textures. So we’ve mostly used shaker cabinets on this side of the kitchen, but then bringing in more of like a bead board type of style on the pantry and on the backside of the island, more of like a shiplap style is just creating lots of different textures. So between the fire clay tiles, between the bricks, between the bead board and the shiplap, there’s just so many different textures that is adding a lot of life to this kitchen.

One more view here of the pantry. So pantry going up, just sort of creating this great floor to ceiling storage here, for things like pet food, for things like cleaning supplies. Once side could be used strictly for food storage and the other side could be used for larger items. So this is a great way to add a ton of storage to a space, especially when you do have a space like this that sort of dips back, right? Because you know, otherwise it’s not really usable space unless you’re doing say a bench and pushing the table up against it. So this really creates a lot better storage inside of this space.

Hopefully you enjoyed this transformation. We cannot wait to see the photos. This was a design concept. So we hand over the concept. They’re working with our friends at Oak Barrel for their cabinetry, who we absolutely love. And they’re working with the contractors and getting everything pulled together and cannot wait to see the photos of how the space all came together.