English style is always associated with merit and cozyness, created at all residential premises of the house. At the same time English-styled kitchen requires firmness, usability and high quality of items.
If you prefer English traditions, you should make sure that the kitchen space will allow to embody all main features of the style and this room should be rather spacious. English kitchen is in fact an independent room, combined with the dining room and able to house all family members at dinner time.
A wide cook stove or oven as well as various lockers and vitrines should be easily placed within the English kitchen. All this content is necessary to locate along the walls at some distance from the table, as if begirding it, so that there would be a space for free movement.
English style could be easily considered as one of the classic directions of the interiors design. Its modesty and elegance is valued by people of different ages and the look of premises does not lose its relevance, notwithstanding the appearance of new interesting styles.
Features of English-Styled Kitchen
It should be noted that English-styled kitchen is always associated with respectability and adherence to traditions. All its elements are high-functioning and located in accordance with accurate symmetry. All English kitchen`s decor elements should be aimed at classic canons without excessive pathos, garishness and lines ornateness. It is important for the forms to be distinct or even rigid, while decoration items should look elegant but moderate and thought out to the last detail. Premises with large windows, decorated with good-quality textile, are a typical type of room for English-styled kitchen. It is possible to use various lighting fixtures as an addition to natural light. The horn-like luster, hanged above the dining table, is the key element of such kitchen. Apart from general lighting it is necessary to place local lighting above working and cooking surfaces.
A carpet with ornamental or heraldic patterns, located in the middle of the room, is another remarkable interior item of English-styled kitchen.
Distinctive materials and facing
As it was previously noted, English interior looks expensive, first of all because of solely natural and high-quality materials. In order to face the floor it is possible to use planks of expensive species of wood, as well as parquet and tiles of stone design and tiles, used for facing of working apron.
It would be better to cover the walls with wallpaper or to paint them in neutral tone, while the ceiling may be decorated with wooden beams or simply painted in light and pristine color.
Special attention should be given to wood as the main material for furniture, wall panels, floor and decorating elements. Upon that high-quality solid wood, namely oak, beechwood, yew-tree and walnut are mainly used for that. Tabletops in working areas, as well as protective aprons are performed of natural or artificial stone, making the kitchen`s interior long-living and highly useable.
Color palette
Ideally, the kitchen should not speckle with bright color combinations, it is necessary for the interior scene to be as natural as possible. Thus, most materials for premises decoration save original appearance and colors of wood, stone and metals remain intacted as well.
In order to recreate genuine English-styled interior you should use the full range of natural tinctures, namely: sandy, beige, wooden-brown, white, grayish brown, light-green and deep red.
Choosing the furniture and household appliances
The furniture in the English-styled kitchen draw everyone`s attention at first glance, as it looks quite expensive and profound, yet not exaggerative at the time. All furniture items should be made of durable species of wood and tabletops should be performed of stone. Soft chair sittings are usually upholstered with useable fabric of moderate pattern.
In case the furniture is prepared for painting, it is important to uphold the technologies, which allow to preserve organic wood texture and its natural tone in the best way. The surfaces of facades and wardrobes are artificially aged and beautified with carved decor and elegant accessories in a form of exquisite handles.
Household appliances for English-styled kitchen are the items, which are invisible and necessary for every-day use, yet imperceptible at first glance. In other words, all useful appliances should be located in a way, which would hide their shiny corpses against the background of the traditional furniture set. For example, big consumer electronics (fridges, dish-washer machines, conventional ovens) must be embedded and screened behind wooden facades while small items should be put inside ambries.
Hearth and home
The cooking stove is always foremost among other household appliances as within the English interior it embodies not just cooking surface. This furniture item should be somehow distinguished among others and the English successfully cope with this task. They always supplement the cooking stove with air extraction system, being proficiently hidden in large ornamental box. While combined together, these two elements look like a true stove, which is the symbol of English traditions and family hearth.
English-styled textile and decor
Kitchen premises demonstrate unique features at every English house and good hostess always strives to highlight and beautify them.
Thus, windows are decorated with dense tidy curtains, belted with ribbons or tassels for convenience. Apart from the basic chequered, striped, ornamental or heraldic fabric, it is appropriate to use transparent curtain lace, following the silhouette of the basic curtain.
There is a lot of brass, aeneous and cast-iron cookware in daily use of English kitchen, as well as ceramics, which makes the room such a cozy and comfortable place. If you wish to create moderate English classics, it would be better to supplement the kitchen with living plants and fruit bowls; and the heartwarming kitchen`s country image might be enhanced with cute napkins, a pair of still-life paintings, baskets or earthenware pots.