Kitchen Essential

Start with a well-designed kitchen; mix that with a carefully thought-out colour scheme and personal decorating touches, and the result will be an individual and interesting room that will be in keeping with the rest of the house.

While the working parts of the kitchen are vitally important, so too are the decorative aspects — you want to create a room that you feel happy working in. There’s no point in having all the latest appliances and high technology if you’re miserable every time you set foot in the kitchen. Think just as carefully about colour and the decorating of the room as you do about every other aspect. The beauty of decorating decisions is that few are final — if you get tired of the wall colour, it’s a lot easier to change than, say, the oven or worktop. For this reason, you can be a little more adventurous with your decorating scheme, safe in the knowledge that if you discover you’ve made a terrible mistake it’s not irrevocable.

As the actual bones of the kitchen — the cabinetry, flooring and appliances — are expensive, it’s probably wise to exercise restraint in these areas. It’s safer to be conservative in your choice of colours for these elements, reserving the more exciting tones for the less permanent features such as paintwork.

The first thing to do when you’re thinking about colour in the kitchen is to decide whether you want your kitchen to have the same colours as used in adjacent rooms. If you do, your choice will be narrowed down enormously. If not, you will have a virtually open palette.

Then think about the effect you want to achieve. As a rule of thumb, if you want to create an intimate, cosy mood, you should choose warm tones such as reds and oranges, or even blues and greens containing a lot of yellow. If you’re after a more sophisticated, cooler look, blues and greens are more suitable, or, again, reds and yellows with a great deal of blue. Even whites, greys, browns and blacks can seem either cool or warm depending on the amount of yellow or blue they contain.

Have a look at the quality of natural light in the room. Do you want to emphasise it, or not? Cool colours can tone down the heat of such light, while warm ones can intensify it.

Colour in the room can come from a variety of sources — paintwork, wallpaper, the splashback, fabric, prints, china — the list goes on. The most obvious way to inject life into the room is with paint, and not just on the walls; have a look at the detailing of the room — windows, doors, picture rails and so on — and see if any of these can be picked out. Red might be too much for complete walls, but the odd touch on architraves or window frames may be just right. Similarly, brightly coloured cabinetry might be overwhelming, but drawer handles of that same colour can add a certain amount of pizzazz.

Be careful, if you do decide to emphasise certain features in the room, that you pick out the more attractive ones.

For instance, the doors, cornices and skirting boards may be worth painting in a contrasting colour, but the pipes and pillars may be decidedly unappealing. When picking out details, it is probably best to err on the side of conservatism; highlight only one or two elements to avoid a bitty and confusing effect. Be as bold as you like with these trim colours.

In some kitchens, it is worth featuring certain structural elements. A case in point would be a window with a deep sill. Choose a contrasting colour for the complete recessed area to emphasise this attractive architectural feature. The window frame itself can be painted in another shade. The sill can then be used as a shelf for cookery books, or for displaying treasured objects. If light is not a consideration in the room, extra shelves could be installed into the recess, and these could be used for display or storage.

Even with an all-white kitchen it’s possible to add a little bit of colour — one or two drawers can be fronted with a different coloured laminate, as, too, can the splashback and perhaps a small area of worktop. When you tire of these colours it’s not a major job to update them.

Tablemats, napkins and teatowels, can create a single, bold colour in an otherwise monochromatic scheme. Have several sets to suit your moods.

To create a room with appeal and individuality, group together well-loved and carefully chosen objects that share a common theme. These could be anything from plates, boxes and kitchen utensils to baskets and glassware. Decorative plates can look wonderful hung on the wall; basketware sitting on top of the kitchen cabinets is equally appealing. For a completely individual look, start collecting something unusual; how about framed orange wrappers; jelly moulds or old kettles?

Artwork need not be reserved for the living areas of the house; framed posters, children’s artwork, botanical prints or lithographs can look terrific on a kitchen wall. Choose the frames and mountings carefully to tie in with the decorating scheme of the room — you could select something that coordinates with your colour scheme or provides contrast.

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