Kitchen Inspiration: Balancing Utility with Beauty

Kitchen Inspiration: Balancing Utility with Beauty

The kitchen is there to be used, but it’s also there to be enjoyed. For most people, this part of the home remains the heart, even if it’s not where we want to sit and watch films, doze off, read the paper or break out a board game. It’s still a place for conversation, as well as cooking – enjoying life, as well as simply getting stuff done.

Plus, the beautifully decorated kitchen is the literal stuff of dreams in the world of interior design, Pinterest searches and Instagram hashtags. Even if you’re not much of a cook, having the perfectly appointed space is a must-have, and still likely to represent the beating heart of the home.

But, for obvious reasons, the kitchen is overrun with objects and appliances that aren’t always the most aesthetic pieces you can imagine and, beyond stowing everything away in cupboards, it can be tricky to balance the space’s utility with pure and simple there-for-the-sake-of-it beauty. 

So, how do you strike that balance in the way you decorate? Here are some of our favourite ideas for one of the favourite rooms of the house.

Have full control over your lighting

Kitchens need strong overheads, probably more than any other room in the house, but they’re definitely not necessary all of the time. If you’re not actively dicing, carving, or dealing with hot oils and pans, then bringing the lighting down to a more comfortable level is the preferable option.

When we talk about layering lighting, we’re often focusing on the lighting in the bedroom or living room, but the design choice is just as applicable to the kitchen.

Layering lighting means introducing multiple lighting sources into a room, which can be layered together or reduced bit-by-bit. Doing so offers more control over the brightness (or dimness) in the room, and avoids that flat, unidimensional look of a room illuminated solely by the overheads.

Surface space is precious, even in larger kitchens, but even one or two lamps added here and there will completely change the way you light the room, and how you enjoy those quieter, calmer moments in there.

You can browse our full lighting collection for more ideas.

Bring back the open display

The classic image of the kitchen dresser may have been replaced with more streamlined alternatives over the past couple of decades, but it’s making a comeback – in a big way.

These days, it doesn’t need to be as perfectly curated as your grandmother’s china cabinet. Instead, it can exude the rustic charm of a cuisine in Southern France, or an eclectic cocina in Spain. Mismatched ceramics collected haphazardly based on what grabbed your eye at the time, along with jaunty stacks of cups, folded tablecloths and rolled-up napkins all gathered together offers the perfect alternative to stowing everything away in the kitchen cupboards. Plates don’t need to be stacked; it’s simple enough to mount a few key pieces vertically, so that they can be as decorative as they are practical.

The kitchen dresser is a beautiful and convenient addition to any home, and, over the years, it will tell a story of the people who use it each and every day. It is one of those pieces that should encourage you to embrace the clutter, to a certain extent, and enjoy the way it evolves over the years.

From tablecloths and napkins to place mats and ceramics, take a look at our full range of tableware here to spark your inspiration.

A comfortable chair is the heart of hearts

Virtually anyone who has ever added a comfortable, stay-a-while chair into their kitchen will be happy to testify that it is the ultimate conversation starter.

Most of us know the feeling of being tied to the kitchen for an afternoon and feeling like we’ve been forgotten by everyone else in the house in favour of a more comfortable place to sit.

A comfortable chair pulled up to the oven or tucked out of the way of the room’s main ‘thoroughfare’, will do more than offer a good place to sit – it will become one of the favourite spots in the entire house. For gossip, confessions, worries and good news — or even just the weekly homework questions — a good chair in the heart of the home will never be wasted.

Obviously, most kitchens aren’t built to house an entire armchair, but even something relatively small – like a slipper chair – will fit the bill.

Any excuse to encourage more activity in the kitchen, and we’re certainly open to it.