Undoubtedly one of the most important rooms in a home, yet often the most overlooked when it comes to styling. Today we're showing some love to the humble kitchen! The hub of most family homes, our kitchens are an essential part of our lives, so why not make them a beautiful space to occupy? Creating a fabulous kitchen is easier than you may have thought, here are some of our top tips for styling your dream kitchen...
The Essentials
There are certain things every kitchen needs. From pots & pans to spoons & spatulas, our key advice when it comes to creating a stylish kitchen is to choose good quality essentials that are beautiful to look at. By investing in the items you see and use everyday, you will elevate the space quickly and easily. It's important at this point to establish a colour palette if you wish to have one. Many people prefer a more neutral kitchen, in which case we recommend focusing on adding lots of different textures. However, if you prefer something a bit more colourful (like us!) then it is a good idea to try and limit your palette to 2-3 key colours. Take a look at a colour wheel and pick shades that are complimentary to one another.
When it comes to pots & pans, we recommend investing in high quality, sustainable cookware that will last you for years to come. We recommend Our Place for minimalistic, eco-friendly cookware that looks great on display in your kitchen. Their infamous Always Pan is made from non-toxic, non-stick ceramic in SEDEX approved factories. If this is out of budget, another great option is looking for high quality secondhand, cast iron pots and pans as these will last you a lifetime. Facebook Marketplace, eBay, Gumtree are all great places to look for preloved cookware as well as local antique or charity shops.
If you're looking for good quality wooden utensils, look no further than our Kenyan Olive Wood collection. From bowls to forks, spoons to salad servers, dishes to chopping boards - every item in our wooden utensils collection has been hand carved from sustainable olive wood in Nairobi, Kenya. These beautifully crafted kitchen essentials will elevate any space, providing an artisanal quality to the kitchen. Quality wooden utensils will last you a lifetime, and will easily transition to fit any aesthetic changes your kitchen goes through due to their classic and timeless design. We think every kitchen needs our Double Salt & Pepper Pot, Tiny Salt Spoons, Batik Salad Servers and Chopping Board. These solid basics will elevate your space whilst being beautifully practical.
Create Vignettes
When styling your kitchen, it can be hard to balance practicality with design. Whilst you may want to have beautiful trinkets on display, oftentimes these things can just get in the way when it comes to actually using the kitchen. That is why we love creating vignettes or a small grouping of items to draw the eye to a focal point in the kitchen. Our favourite vignettes are made up of functional and practical items, styled in an interesting way. So how do you create your own vignette? Pick a few items from around your kitchen that vary in height, colour & texture. We particularly love displaying rustic wooden chopping boards alongside smooth soapstone dishes to create some contrast in textures. Using a placemat to anchor your vignette is also a great idea, and can be used to inject some additional colour or texture into your display. Make sure you place pieces of different heights in front of one another, to create some dimension with your everyday items. Our Small Wooden Animal Stools are great for creating different heights and make perfect pot stands for your kitchen herbs.
Another great way to create a decorative yet functional focal point in your kitchen is with lighting. Carefully selected light shades can elevate your kitchen decor whilst remaining a practical part of the room's design. We particularly love styling statement light shades above a kitchen island or counter to draw the eye around the room. If your kitchen has decently high ceilings, why not group together a few different woven light shades to create depth by hanging them at different heights. For more petite kitchens, our Diablo Paper Light Shade is the perfect structural piece that packs a punch without taking up too much space.
Stylish Storage
Storage solutions don't have to be boring. In fact, we think incorporating stylish storage into your kitchen design is a must! If you have adopted a more zero-waste approach to food shopping (like us!) then you will probably already have lots of glass jars knocking about your kitchen. Recycled glass jars make the perfect, stylish kitchen storage solution as they are also super practical and sustainable. Keep hold of your old jam jars, pickle jars and even ask your friends and family to do the same. Once you have collected enough jars, you can use them to store all of your dry, refillable goods such as rice, pasta, beans, lentils, flour, sugar, coffee and more. We like to keep an olive wood scoop in with the things we use most, small ones for coffee and sugar and larger ones for flour and rice.
Baskets are also great for storing items that you can't decant such as crisps, tins or bottles. Pick baskets in similar shades to create a uniform look or go wild with contrasting colours! We have a huge range of Kenyan baskets in different sizes and colours to suit every storage need in your kitchen. We also have some beautiful Ugandan lidded baskets which are fantastic for storing kitchen gadgets, reusable shopping bags and other bits and bobs. We love storing things in baskets as it means we don't have to hide everything away! We can display our storage baskets proudly, making it easier to grab what you need without having to rummage through cupboards and drawers.
We hope you found these tips & tricks useful! You can shop our entire Kitchen Edit here. Don't forget to follow us on Instagram for some serious interior style inspiration.