Italian Kitchen

In a country house in Italy I was able to transform an old kitchen into a modern one, still maintaining a Country atmosphere and with a reasonable budget for Interior Decoration.

Before: Two small stoves from the 60's still hooked to a gas cylinder,

a wasted corner, an old cabinet, no counter space.

A very tired and not functional kitchen!

After

I redesigned the working area of the kitchen and even if a sink under the window would have been ideal, I wanted to stay on budget and I maintained the existing water supply line.
A gas line was installed and a 5 burners gas top (and oven underneath) was ordered, a local stone countertop (not a granite, but a stone with fossils trapped inside and the most beautiful cream colour) was cut to measure.
I chose not to have a standard size kitchen counter but I ordered a deeper than usual one to have more working space and more storage.
Custom order wood cabinets with a dark, rich red stain (being wood it will be easy to repaint when another colour will become more appealing) were installed and the new dishwasher was also paneled.
In a kitchen, the most difficult part of a house to design, every inch counts and the function of every area is most important. I was able to insert two large and deep drawers for pots and pans, a shallow drawer under the oven to store lids (always a challenge to keep in order) and a narrower, but still deep, pull out recycling system on the side of the sink.
To paint the walls the colour of old style butter was chosen.
I like to create vignettes, so I decided to put art on the wall and use old white ceramic containers for salt, spices, tools and I displayed cooking books on a shelf designed to finish one side of the counter. The soup tureen is Richard Ginori from 1930.

The kitchen serves also as informal breakfast, brunch area.  The table and chairs are Swedish, made of teak, from the 60's.   The china cabinet is from the 20's and it was repainted in a light cream colour with deep red accents, the family pictures found a place on the milk glass doors.
The den beyond the kitchen has the same colour but one wall was painted a deep red, to create continuity.

Lots of action here...as you can see I decided not to use upper cabinets, but only a shelf to display art and objects, in this case a collection of old white milk jugs and a Sheffield teapot.
I placed art also above the sink: an oil painting and precious kids' drawings.

A single, but deep, sink in the kitchen was enough since the old stainless steel double sink, useful to wash vegetables or big pots, was installed in the small room behind the curtain, where there is also the fridge and lots of pantry space.

On a wall a collection of old Spode plates with images of wild game.

A very happy country kitchen, functional but still full of memories of the past.