Morning, hope you guys had a lovely weekend. Mine was a working one, spent knee-deep in book writing, huddled around a log fire as our boiler has blown! Boiling saucepans of water to have a bath at the end of the weekend pretty much ended it with a bang. I’m nearing completion on the writing front though – I can see a bit of light at the end of that tunnel and the layout of the new book is looking amazing. Best book so far I reckon, I am feeling pretty excited about it.
Anyway I don’t know about you, but when it comes to splashing the cash I don’t want to spend my money on the boring suff like boilers (inevitable now!). I want to spend it on the cool stuff instead. I’m specifically talking kitchens here because the units, cabinetry, hidden appliances and so on sort of bore me. I get excited by the bits that enliven the space like handtufted rugs, mud beaded chandeliers and so on. Practical nope, cool YES! But I need to save money on some of the boring stuff to justify the cool things. My point with today’s post is that you don’t have to spend oodles of dosh in your kitchen to make it look and feel bespoke.
HARDWARE
Change up the hardware. Simplest trick out there is to update boring old drawer pulls with something more glam. Think of hardware as you would jewellery, and it will lift your kitchen big time. The ones above are from Sun Valley Bronze and Anthropologie.
PLANTS
I’ve gone a bit OTT with my plants (all faux of course) so I’ve got a giant fig on the counter, super large cacti and sprawling evergreen branches on the console in front of the window and clumps of small foliage near the sink. You don’t have to use faux of course, any plants whatsoever will give your kitchen a luxe look. A sweet little herb garden in pots on the windowsill is always great.
LIGHTING
I say this a lot but lighting’s a game changer. By this I mean plop something you would normally put on a side table in your living room onto your kitchen counter. This changes it up big time, especially if your space is open plan like mine. The more fanciful you are with lighting, the more expensive your kitchen will look. I went one step further and hung a chandelier more suitable for a dining or living room over my kitchen island, and it’s just stunning.
ART & ACCESSORISING
I know we are not looking at a cheap kitchen above (designed by Kelly Wearstler) but I wanted to demonstrate that when you accessorise, magic happens. It turns practical spaces into amazing spaces! Go ahead and add art to the kitchen wall even. Unless you’ve got a few Picasso’s knocking around I wouldn’t worry too much about the condensation or steam in a kitchen. I’ve got a small, restrained art collection in my kitchen and again it totally lifts it. The moment you chuck in anything decorative it utterly changes the vibe of the kitchen.