5 Designs that Give a Vintage Look to Your Kitchen

Cottagecore had been ruling over Pinterest and Instagram for the past few years. And for very good reason too. We have been stuck at home for the past couple of years and our homes are now synonymous with our offices. Isn’t it quite understandable why people want to escape into an idyllic rustic life?

Well, why not bring that same aesthetic to a corner of your house that is well-divorced from your overall office set-up? The kitchen is now, more often than not, combined with the dining room set-up in order to not alienate the chef who is laboring away at the stove. It conjugates the process of cooking and eating, thereby not allowing us to forget the ones who are responsible for bringing us that hearty meal.

This combination of the kitchen and the dining room wasn’t particularly common in the past that the cottagecore aesthetic aspires to emulate. However, the benefit of going vintage with your furniture is that you don’t really have to sacrifice functionality and ease for beauty.

While installing overhanging lights and vintage taps with ancient plumbing systems can be too much of an impractical investment, the best way to give your kitchen a vintage look is by sprucing up your cabinets.

You cannot really get very impractical with cabinets in the first place. And the best part? They actually take up more than half the space in your kitchen. So, no matter how understated they are, they are bound to give your kitchen a rustic feel.

Farmhouse Feel

For the real cottagecore aesthetic, you definitely need to take a look at farmhouse kitchen cabinets. Farmhouse kitchen cabinets have two main features: they are almost always made of beautifully striped or pied wood and they have a really rustic feel. They don’t have the same polished look as modern kitchen furniture. Their beauty lies in imperfections.

It’s a great idea to set up your farmhouse kitchen cabinets by hand. This is because the craftsmanship that was needed to create such unique kinds of furniture has now vanished. Opting for a machine-made farmhouse kitchen cabinet simply feels inauthentic.

Rustic Inn Set-Up

Think of the pubs and inns that were littered all over the US and the UK in the past centuries. They have often featured in several memorable pieces of fiction as the setting of the main dramatic action.

If that is what you are trying to emulate, you should go with the whole inn setup. Here, the cabinets can take the center stage if you decide to add a signature island counter at the center of your kitchen. This allows the entire process of cooking and eating to be integrally bound with one another. Adding vintage wooden bar stools around the counter is a great idea.

These designs are so impressive because they basically offer everything in an all-in-one package. The island which has cabinets also serves as a kitchen countertop, dining table, and bar where you can mix drinks easily.

Old-school Colors

While cottagecore is definitely a crowd favorite, there is no reason that this is the only past that your imagination can escape to.

If you want to give your kitchen a rather quaint Jane Austenesque feel, you should definitely try going for cabinets in the blue spectrum. Yes, blue isn’t a color that induces appetite, but it does act as a neutral background on which you can add a splash of colors through a vase of flowers or a fruit basket. The general feeling is that of a quaint English country home with its beautifully arranged china cups and porcelain in a glass cabinet on the side.

However, if you are a person who prefers a more robust approach, why not go for the reds? The old Hollywood feel that is. “Vintage” might also mean the era of James Dean, Audrey Hepburn, and Marlon Brando. If that is the look that you are going for, you should definitely opt for the warm oranges and yellows.

Repurposed Furniture

When people talk about vintage furniture, what they really talk about is actual vintage furniture that is repurposed. Now, you can definitely buy the repurposed furniture that is sold by several YouTube and Instagram content creators and artists. However, that doesn’t really help you build a connection with that piece of furniture. After all, you neither purchased it from a flea market nor did you personally make the changes.

This is why it’s a great idea to buy the required vintage knobs and handles and start your own DIY project. But wait! If you have never done anything like this before, then you definitely should start by ruining a valuable piece of vintage furniture. Instead, get some practice by assembling a cabinet by yourself first. Companies that offer DIY furniture also supply detailed instructions on how to build them. So, make sure you are confident before you get started on a priceless piece from the nineteenth century.

Vintage Woods

I have already mentioned how quintessential vintage woods are to farmhouse kitchen cabinets. However, good quality vintage woods are hard to find. Oak and cherry, maple and cider- the options seem countless. But make sure you get a piece that isn’t over polished, and more importantly ultra-thin like today’s cabinets are, owing to the fact that most of them are made of plywood with an external veneer of real wood. Bare wood is essential for the cottagecore aesthetic.

In Conclusion

So, which one did you like the best among these? The old Hollywood pop of color, the Austeneque blues, the real vintage furniture, or the farmhouse kitchen cabinets? Whichever one you choose, remember that all the other furniture and accessories in your kitchen should prove to be somewhat harmonious with these vintage cabinets.

So, you might just go with petite little whitewashed chairs or lace curtains or antique sconces- but whatever you do, remember, functionality is the key when it comes to the kitchen. Don’t install something that is going to transform into an impractical burden in the long term.