Monday Inspiration: Beautiful Rooms

Focusing on kitchens and bathrooms this week as these are the hardest to get right, the most expensive and yet the most important rooms in the house. The key to both of these rooms is not to treat them in isolation. They are part of your home and, as such, must reflect and link with the rest of the decor. Keep that in mind and you won’t go wrong.

This duck egg blue kitchen is on the market with Historiskahem and one can only assume the intricate moulding is an original feature, you can see how the vendors have echoed it in the lace tablecloth. Colour is the easiest way to link a kitchen with the rest of your home, but note also the vintage wooden shelves and chair, the colour of which is picked up in the towel while the copper cooker hood is pleasingly rustic (as opposed to modern and shiny) and brings a note of warmth that a classic chrome one wouldn’t do. If you explore the rest of this house you will also see that this is an open plan room which, should you have similar, using warm metallics such as copper or brass is a good way to bring together the function of a kitchen with the more relaxing form of a sitting room. Chrome is always very purposeful I think.

Now just the other day I was musing to The Mad Husband about closing our open shelves with reeded glass (he wasn’t averse) and painting the island a different colour (he was more averse to that) and then I came across this dream kitchen which is officially…. all together now… the one that I want woo hoo ho.

So much so that I’m showing you three different angles. It was designed by 202 Design for a project by Studio Duggan and I adore the mix of reeded glass vintage looking cabinets with the warm pink of the cupboards below.

My other current fantasy is to build the fridge into a cupboard to increase the feeling of a room in which you cook rather than just a functional kitchen and once again, note this is a large room with brass hardware rather than chrome, the colour of which is picked up in the table setting, and yes I appreciate the table will have been laid for the picture but you see the point. The leather seats are also a darker, tonal, version of the base cupboards which again brings a cohesiveness to the space.

And after kitchens bathrooms. This is the en suite in the home of Tiffany Duggan, whose studio created the kitchen above. More reeded glass and a large basin with two sets of taps rather than two separate ones which would take up more space. The baskets provide storage ( I would add a shelf underneath for more stuff but there is a shelf of stuff clearly visible through the door so this may not be the main basin. And finally, a rug will always bring the “room feel” to a room. If you are near a bath you can always stick a bathmat on top when in use.

And to finish two very different bathrooms but both, as has everything today harnessing the power of pink – from copper at the top to wallpaper below and accessories above, this is such a brilliant warming neutral colour. Above is a bathroom from a house on Historiskahem, the rest of the house is quite different but square tiles is definitely becoming a thing.

Below, classic white metro tiles laid in a herringbone pattern echo the diamond design on the wallpaper above while hanging lights either side of the mirror are a gorgeous change from wall lights. And of course the perfect touch is the bright yellow paint on the ikea stools bringing an element of fun and disruption to this elegant space.