See How Wood Warms Modern White Kitchens
Have your shining all-white kitchen and warmth too, with this natural material that keeps starkness at bay
Houzz Contributor. I am a former magazine editor specializing in travel and design. I just completed my first remodel, turning my crumbling 1941 kitchen into a beauty of grays, whites and natural wood. If I could, I'd sleep on the countertop. That's how much I love it.
You can also read my parenting blog on Baby Center http://blogs.babycenter.com/author/sschoech/
Houzz Contributor. I am a former magazine editor specializing in travel... More »
I love an all-white kitchen: tiles, counters, cabinets. It's clean and bright and open. But it can also be a bit sterile. My mom calls these kitchens morgues. In other words, they can feel cold.
Which is sort of the opposite of how the heart of the home is supposed to feel. Right?
But you don't have to sacrifice your white kitchen or your modern dreams. All you have to do is add a little natural wood grain to the mix. And — poof! — instant modern warmth.
These 11 kitchens are perfect examples of how you can maintain your modern lines and clean, open feeling while adding a little natural glow.
Which is sort of the opposite of how the heart of the home is supposed to feel. Right?
But you don't have to sacrifice your white kitchen or your modern dreams. All you have to do is add a little natural wood grain to the mix. And — poof! — instant modern warmth.
These 11 kitchens are perfect examples of how you can maintain your modern lines and clean, open feeling while adding a little natural glow.
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| Red-Toned Wood Mix it up. All cabinets do not have to be the same. One bank can be white; another bank can be wood grain. There is nothing cold about this bright white kitchen. |
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by Tervola Designs
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| A wooden countertop on the island is a popular way to add some natural grain to the mix. Personally, I don't love wood next to water sources (stains, mildew and warping), but I do love a big slab of shining wood in the middle of a kitchen. |
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| Golden Wood Wood with a very conspicuous grain is the modernist's way to go. It's still warm, but it's got those nice, nearly symmetrical lines. |
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| This wood peninsula has both warm golden tones and stylish horizontal lines. |
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| In this kitchen, the cabinets all match, but the countertops are mixed. |
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| Sometimes just a lovely wood floor provides just the right warmth. It's that little milk of human kindness every kitchen needs. |
by Cardel Designs
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Brown Wood
Dark wood tends to be more traditional (although not always). This wood island keeps all that white tile from making the kitchen look like a lab.
Dark wood tends to be more traditional (although not always). This wood island keeps all that white tile from making the kitchen look like a lab.
by Ilija Mirceski
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Dark wood goes modern with horizontal lines. I love the wood-backed shelves — unexpected and rich looking.
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| Nothing brings an organic touch like a beautiful piece of live-edge wood. This one seems to be melting off the island. Gorgeous. See more of this house |
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by Abbott Moon
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| A wood-grain table in an eat-in kitchen gives this setup a homey feel. The wooden beams, cabinet style and wood floors all add up to a very cozy kitchen. |
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| This kitchen is not even close to feeling like a morgue; the tooled legs on the island, cottage-style windows and recessed-panel cabinets take care of that. But the dark wood floors and the area rugs make it truly warm. I love Persian rugs in a wood and white kitchen. More: The case for wood countertops Browse white kitchen photos |
Ideabook published on Sept. 24, 2012.
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We had some bookshelf-like elements custom made (in oak) to interrupt our long row of white high cabinets in the kitchen. And the floor is teak, so the white isn't overwhelming.
A note about actually cooking in these beautiful kitchens: The long-running trend towards granite, white cabs, stainless appliances etc. is driven, I think, in part because those combinations make for a really hard-wearing kitchen that can withstand a part-time catering gig or institutional size meal prep like Thanksgiving dinner or largish dinner parties. Compared to laminate counters, granite and maple are super-tough and easier to clean with a little know-how. Same for stainless -- much tougher than enamel. Some ideas about the "gourmet kitchen" being more peacock than workhorse are simply based on incorrect assumptions about how these materials actually behave.
One last observation: Some serious cooks de-clutter their kitchens to the point of looking austere simply because it is easier to sanitize. I say "some" serious cooks because professional chefs are notoriously messy at home (or so I have been told by a few of their spouses!)