Country kitchen ideas to suit every kind of taste, from cottages to stately homes
The ideal of the country kitchen, with its AGA churning out heat, its terracotta tiles or flagstones, and perhaps a dresser loaded down with charmingly mismatched crockery, is a powerful one. It may be a relatively recent invention, as our former editor Sue Crewe once pointed out, (since the country houses of the rich would, until the middle of the 20th century, have had a working kitchen where no one but the staff ever entered, and more humble country dwellings would have been less than idyllic), but it's a powerful vision nonetheless. And increasingly it's not limited to the actual countryside – more and more of us are installing AGAs and scrubbed pine tables in our city kitchens too, aiming for that impossibly warm and inviting space we might imagine, say, from the memoirs of James Herriot, or Cider with Rosie. “The country kitchen may be something we have reimagined into reality,” says Sue Crewe, “but whether your kitchen has developed organically or been bought off the shelf, it can only be a good thing if it brings people together round a table and makes the preparation and eating of food an enjoyable activity.”
Of course the country kitchen as an idea comes with infinite variety: small but neat cottage kitchens, spacious open-plan farmhouse kitchens, and their much grander, Downton Abbey style relatives. And that's before we get to thinking about French or Italian country kitchens, which have a charm all of their own. Nevertheless, we've done our best to gather a representative sample for you below, from the extensive range of country kitchen ideas featured on the pages of House & Garden.
Country kitchen ideas
Christopher Horwood1/31We adore this scullery in a Devon house by HÁM Interiors, which was created to allow private chefs somewhere to work, and to keep any serious mess out of the main kitchen. The bespoke joinery is painted in ‘Sang de Boeuf’ by Edward Bulmer, while the hardware is ‘HÁM Hardware Cup Handles’ by Studio HÁM. A Belgian bluestone hand-chiselled counter and sink lend a hardworking feel.
Tom Griffiths2/31In wallpaper designer Mia Reay's grand Lancashire country house, the kitchen has a Scandinavian feel, with Ikea chairs painted off-white around the French farmhouse table, and inherited antique Wedgwood creamware platters on open shelving. Simple white square tiles on the walls, tongue and groove on the cupboard doors, and black and terracotta chequerboard tiles add to the relaxed feel.
Chris Horwood3/31Yellow kitchens are all the rage at the moment, and this one from a Hampshire cottage decorated by Max Rollitt is a firm favourite. The joinery was designed by Artichoke Ltd and painted in Farrow & Ball’s ‘Sudbury Yellow’.
Michael Sinclair4/31Sink curtains always lend a pleasing country feel to a kitchen – here they knock the formality off the joinery in designer Catherine Chichester's Cotswold barn. The delicate colour on the walls and cabinetry is a mix of four shades from paint specialists Relics of Witney.
© Rachael Smith Photography Ltd5/31When designer Lucinda Griffith moved into her Welsh cottage, she says, she ‘played it safe and went for something smart’ in
the kitchen. Realising her mistake a few years later, she got out her paintbrush. Let it be a lesson to us all not to underestimate the transformative power of a lick of paint or a colourful fabric. Thanks to the yellow shelves (in ‘Goldcrest’ by Fenwick & Tilbrook), she says, ‘the sun shines even on a gloomy day’, while the repainted cabinets (now in ‘Mahogany’ by Farrow & Ball) take on a deep purple hue against the pink walls.
6/31Eye-catching textiles are central to this Oxfordshire project by Nadine Finnegan. The founder of Decurate Interiors chose Ottoline’s saffron ‘Sporty Stripes’ in practical polyester for the blinds and teamed this with a ‘Checkered’ pink and green jute runner from Tate & Darby.
7/31Kitchen dressers speak of an earlier time – of the unpretentious cottage kitchen or the simple, practical spaces usually associated with below-stairs activities in grand houses. Plain English made this dresser-style run of units for a project by the interior designer Rita Konig in County Durham.
8/31An eclectic approach has created an appealing look in the Cotswold house of Edit58 founder Lisa Mehydene. Rough masonry walls in ‘Pointing’ are combined with tongue and groove in ‘Dead Salmon’, both by Farrow & Ball, while vintage finds – including a florist’s table and 1930s Thonet chairs – sit alongside British Standard cabinets. The terracotta tiles add a pleasingly earthy feel.
Martin Morrell9/31The stainless-steel island contrasts with the existing terracotta brick floor and oak cabinets in this fairytale house on Dartmoor with a warm, sanctuary-like interior by Retrouvius.
Michael Sinclair10/31Susie Atkinson designed the white cupboards in her country house to resemble an antique dresser base and commissioned Olive Tree Renovations to make them. She also designed the polished steel and oak island, which was made by Rupert Bevan.
© Rachael Smith Photography Ltd11/31In this Norfolk cottage by Anna Haines, together with the Crittall windows and larch ceiling, the polished concrete floor and walls painted in Farrow & Ball’s ‘Strong White’ create a stylish industrial look. Oak units in a custom dark blue stain are complemented by Carrara marble worktops, with three antique pendant lights from Nick Jones above. The oak-topped island is partnered by DeVol bar stools.
Paul Massey12/31In a country house by Carlos Garcia, reclaimed flagstones from Norfolk Antique & Reclamation and Plain English cabinetry are given a modern feel by splashes of colour on the island (Plain English’s ‘Nicotine’), table and door (below). The table legs are painted in ‘Deep Grès de Flandres Blue’ by Papers and Paints and the door in (Edward Bulmer’s ‘Naples Yellow’). Aviva Halter created the bespoke Aga splashback tiles.
Michael Sinclair13/31Rustic antique pieces, including a painted cupboard, a farmhouse table and French 20th-century chairs add character to cabinets from Howdens in Thea Speke's country kitchen.
Ollie Tomlinson14/31The kitchen in this Cotswold house by Tom Morris was already in a good state, it simply required decoration. ‘The Beautiful old welsh dresser was in quite a bad state. We painted it an Yves Klein blue and added a Swedish flat weave.’
Paul Massey15/31Plain English units painted in ‘Mash’ and an island in ‘Sauce’, with patterned Balineum tiles behind the cooker, create a modern country-house feel in this house by Rita Konig. The space under the island is used for dog beds.
DAVIDE LOVATTI16/31Another Country’s oak ‘Hardy’ chairs partner an old farmhouse table in this heavenly rustic kitchen in a 16th-century Italian house, restored to a glorious state by Maria Speake of Retrouvius.
Mark Anthony Fox17/31In the house of a filmmaker-turned-hemp-grower in the Cambridgeshire countryside, the kitchen combines rustic country touches with more modern elements. The splashes of soft yellow, along with the high ceilings makes the kitchen a bright, airy space.
Paul Massey18/31Lisa Mehydene, founder of online homeware platform edit58, was looking for a weekend house in the Cotswolds when she found this loftily proportioned converted barn on the site of a former spiritual retreat.
Pooky’s ‘Cookie’ pendant light in a now-discontinued shade of pale blue hangs above a 19th-century florist’s table from 1stDibs, which is teamed with Thirties bentwood Thonet chairs – originally from a cinema in the Czech Republic – also from 1stDibs. Three sets of framed botanicals (two seen) are displayed on the wall in Farrow & Ball’s ‘Pointing’ above a glazed sideboard from Belgium. A Swedish runner sourced by Lisa adds subtle colour.
Photography by Paul Whitbread19/31House & Garden award winner Edward Bulmer is a man of many talents: interior designer, architectural historian, and founder of a paint company, Edward Bulmer Natural Paint. Here, in his first book, The Colourful Past: Edward Bulmer and the English Country House, Bulmer takes readers on a tour of a Yeoman's house with an eclectic mix of styles. The core of the property dates back to the seventeenth-century, while the exterior is Jacobean, and the interiors are mostly Edwardian, with furnishings brought over from the Far East – but the effect is far from clumsy. The hall conveniently gives onto the cutting garden and herb patch to serve the flower arranger and the cook. The walls are painted in our Stone White and the hall beyond is in Buff.
Michael Sinclair20/31Keith Johnson and Glen Senk’s search for a retreat from Florida’s heat took them to a Grade II-listed house in south west England, which, after restoration and redecoration, is a refreshing amalgamation of creative American spirit and English country ideals. Designed by Patrick Williams of Berdoulat, this room provides easily accessible storage as well as housing the fridge. The half-glazed doors in Papers and Paints’ ‘H2106’ in a gloss finish lead into the kitchen, where the walls are lined in white ‘Harmony Field’ tiles from Francis Ceramics. The lantern below the skylight once hung in the stables at Buckingham Palace.
Martin Morrell21/31Faced with the daunting task of reviving this 17th-century cottage in the Cotswolds, Ben Adler and Pat Llewellyn enlisted the help of historic building consultant Hilton Marlton. Together, they restored its original features without losing sight of the need to make it a comfortable weekend base.
A Dutch 18th-century brass chandelier hangs over a George III farmhouse table, both from Bonhams. The 1770 oak and pine dairy dresser, with a space below for milk churns, was the first antique Ben and Pat bought together. It holds an array of blue and white china inherited from Pat’s beloved aunt. Part of the couple’s collection of carved Welsh love spoons, given as symbols of love and devotion, is displayed over the door.
Michael Sinclair22/31A move to the house on the North York Moors that has been in her husband’s family since 1899 has provided textile designer Natasha James with inspiration and the ideal showcase for her colourful block-printed linens. The Plain English cabinets and preparation table in ‘Pale Powder’ and ‘Hague Blue’, both Farrow & Ball, set off the original checkerboard terracotta floor, said to have been inspired by Monet’s kitchen at Giverny. The blind in Natasha’s ‘Pushkar’ linen for Tasha Textiles is complemented by a trio of Scottish spongeware plates on the wall. On the mantelshelf, Claudia Rankin plates are displayed with Katrin Moye cups. A watercolour of apples by Emma Tennant hangs below them.
Simon Upton23/31A photograph of the kitchen is what first drew its owner, Miranda Alexander, to this house in Dorset. Reclaimed Blue Lias Flagstones sells salvaged stone flooring similar to these from £150 a square metre. Above her kitchen table, Miranda has hung a white pendant light. The ‘Cobb Rise & Fall Small Pendant’ from Original BTC is similar.
Andrew Montgomery24/31The bright and airy kitchen at Wardington Manor in Oxfordshire features a cream Aga, rustic wooden benches and stone flooring. The period property is the family home of Bridget Elworthy and also doubles as the base for garden design company, The Land Gardeners, of which Bridget is half. A fire in 2004 meant that when the Elworthys moved in, the house had been recently carefully restored so as to maintain its character.
Lucas Allen25/31The panelling in Katie Fontana's kitchen is painted white, which makes the small space feel light and bright. Vintage knick-knacks decorate the shelves and small paintings complete the eclectic scheme. This is country meets kooky.
Paul Massey26/31The raku-fired hexagonal floor tiles in Robin Muir's Cotswolds kitchen are by Karak. Edwin Lock Furniture built the drawers and cupboard using reclaimed timber. As with his other houses, the kitchen features a dresser with ceramics.
Paul Massey27/31In the kitchen of the Duchesse de Magenta's Renaissance Chateau, copper pans are prettily arranged, hanging from wooden strips in rows. This makes for a creative storage idea - a great way of using wall space efficiently while adding a cosy country feel to your kitchen.
Sharyn Cairns28/31The white Aga in the kitchen of interior designer Ben Pentreath's country house was installed in the Sixties. Ben added the wooden floor, painted in Farrow & Ball's 'Hardwick White', and found the glazed wall cupboard in a junk shop.
'Although we did a lot of rescuing, it doesn't look over-restored,' the designer says. 'The kitchen floor, for example, needed replacing. As there was a patch of old stone flagging, I had hoped there would be more beneath the linoleum. Of course, there wasn't, so we simply glued wooden boards on top of the existing floor and painted them dove grey. It looks really nice and happily maintains the fiction that nothing much has happened here in the past 200 years.'
Simon Upton29/31Interior designer Flora Soames found solace – and the focus to design her first fabric collection – in decorating this former gamekeeper’s cottage in the West Country and filling it with her most treasured possessions. In the kitchen, the cabinets are painted in ‘Indigo’ by Edward Bulmer. An antique Swedish refectory table from Talisman is teamed with Arts and Crafts chairs with seat pads in leather from Soane.
Michael Sinclair30/31The kitchen of a 19th-century cottage perched on the wild Pembrokeshire coastline, with interiors by John McCall. John designed the units, which were made by Mark Stone’s Welsh Kitchens. The worktops are made from hammered black granite.
Simon Brown31/31When Emma Burns inherited the former stables that her parents had progressively converted as a weekend retreat, she put into practice the principles that guide her professional work as one of the leading interior design directors at Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler. The original kitchen had an old pine island built around a structural post in the centre of the room. The post was removed and the beam it had supported was reinforced with a steel plate fixed to its underside with coach bolts to make a more harmonious space. An Aga was installed, the lino floor was replaced with flagstones to match those in the hall, and reclaimed doors were found for the cupboards.
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