Tour of an Airy Countryside Kitchen (Studio Series Pt. 2)

This month, we are transitioning from our Aussie Minimalist kitchen display to our Airy Countryside display here in the studio. Our goal is to showcase a variety of styles and features for our clients so that they can best make decisions for their own home. This particular kitchen has a wealth of secret customizations within.

Of course, we have to start with the concealed coffee bar! This one in particular (a Hickory hutch from Countryside) is spacious and has a couple of special touches.

First, you’ll notice that it has pocket doors. In this photo, they’ve been opened and folded back, so that your family can bustle around the coffeemaker in the morning without having to continually open up a cabinet door.

Another little feature is that there is a drawer beneath the primary doors that is designed specifically to hold your single-serving coffee cups (or K-Cups).

Pendant lighting by Kelly Wearstler.

If there’s one thing we truly treasure, it’s a massive hood. This one is perfect for the 36” cooktop. We kept the design fairly simple with a large rustic beam installed at the top to add an organic touch and stave off any feeling of sterility.

Above the cooktop, you’ll see the piece that probably gets the most questions in the studio - the pot filler (aka the faucet). This is a great thing to have if you don’t want to lug heavy pots of water back and forth from the sink.

Underneath, we’ve snuck in several different types of organizational drawers. Our job is to give our clients more than one solution for the problems that they have in their current space so that it can be completely bespoke to their needs. You’ll see in the photos above: a spice rack, a pull out utensil drawer (with a knife holder), a rollout drawer for pots and pans, and a spice drawer.

This photo shows two different details that we think make aesthetically-pleasing (yet functional) additions.

There is an open storage space specifically for cutting boards. The beauty of this cubby is that its built with the same wood from the hutch with the coffee maker, which ties that coloring together.

Additionally, the drawers in the corner are actually diagonal drawers, which makes for a much better option than a lazy susan, and gives you more tiers for storage!

Along the back wall (pictured above), we have a gorgeous set of cabinets that act like a built-in hutch.

Of course, this piece offers a massive amount of storage space, but we also took this opportunity to showcase three different ways to do appliance doors at the countertop level.

From left to right, we have a tip-up door, a lift-up door, and a pocket door.

On the right of the cabinets, we put in a set of open shelving which is such a nice and airy way to finish off a corner. The best part is that you can add your own personality with the decor you choose to display.

Our true labor of love in this kitchen was the backsplash.

We went completely untraditional here. Rather than a tile, we opted for an exterior stone. To give it an authentic and older feel, we ended up plastering over it.

All in all, it was an incredibly intense process that we will share with you at a later date!

While we don’t typically like to have favorites, we are making an exception for the kitchen island. It’s a piece that is entirely functional and allows for exclusively storage beneath.

At the back of the island, we made custom doors. We ordered the cabinet fronts prepped for glass. Rather than actually using glass, we instead made rattan inserts, which were painted to give a furniture feel.

The other detail that’s really striking is that this island is on legs, which we gave a brass cap. To tie the whole thing together, we also added a brass towel bar and brass hardware to the doors.

The reason we like to share the kitchen displays that are in the studio is two-fold; first, we of course want to highlight all the different types of customizations that you can add to your own kitchen but second, this particular kitchen shows that you can take a completely blank slate (such as a commercial space) and design it to create an elegant and earthy feel.