Get inspired with our classic white kitchen layout, design board and inspiration photos for our rebuild.
There's no denying that kitchens are the heart of a home. It's where meals and memories are made and shared, and it's the one place in our home design process that I really want all the details to come together perfectly. Not only do we want this space to look good, but it also needs to function well. We live in the middle of nowhere and cook every meal at home, so I need this kitchen to work for our lifestyle. We also entertain often (my husband comes from a large family), so I would like the layout to work well for large gatherings.
Here's what we have for our kitchen layout so far:
Our kitchen will be part of the great room so we want it to look cohesive with the dining room and living room and also make sure it flows for entertaining and everyday living. Our goal of this space is to maximize our views of the vineyard, create a space for easy entertaining both indoors and out, but design something that is also family-friendly for our two young daughters. I would like our interior to feel timeless and authentic with some warm touches of leather and wood – sort of a mix of farmhouse, traditional and a little rustic.
I'm excited to show you my classic white farmhouse kitchen design board and inspiration photos. But before I do, I have a few thoughts to share with you on our kitchen choices.
When we purchased our current place, we knew it would be temporary, but we also had just found out we were pregnant with our first baby. The kitchen was closed off from the dining and living rooms and we knew that we would want an open site line to watch the kids when we were cooking in the kitchen. We decided to renovate the kitchen to open the space up and use this experience as a trial run for when we built our forever home.
In our renovation process, we ended up choosing honed Carrara marble tile and slabs for our backspace and countertops – a look we absolutely love! Initially, we had planned for white subway tile and quartz countertops, but when we went to look at tile and slabs, we quickly changed our mind. We went into the store thinking that marble was out of our budget. But when we walked into the tile store, we fell in love with two honed Carrara marble slabs that were only $21/sq ft compared to the quartz at $40/sq ft.
We were so excited to get real marble at a much more affordable price than the "marble look-alike" quartz. Because of the savings on our countertops, we were able to upgrade to 3" x 6" honed Carrara marble tiles for our backsplash and still walked out ahead on the budget. We plan on using Carrara marble again in our house rebuild. The advantage of quartz over marble is that it is indestructible, whereas marble is a softer stone and requires much more maintenance. But we love the look of marble and hope that we can find a similar deal for this new kitchen.
Living in the country has many advantages, but service and repairs aren't one of them. We learned the hard way in our temporary home renovation about buying appliances that aren't locally serviceable. We decided to experiment with a 48" range that was a designer knock-off and 75% cheaper than the higher-end brands like Wolf and Viking. Boy, did we learn our lesson (several times over). Between the poor customer service and the lack of repair people for the knock-off brand, we have what I like to call a large boat anchor in our kitchen. The company won't help us because we are out of warranty, although this problem started when we were still under warranty, and no one locally works on this brand.
Our oven currently ignites itself and only half of the burners work. So we turn it off by turning the fuse off in the breaker box so the range doesn't ignite itself and burn our house down...ugh. I bring up this problem because we have decided to only purchase brands that can be serviced locally for our rebuild. And for us to have a larger 48" range, we have to buy a Wolf. I am VERY excited to have the opportunity to use this superb workhorse of a range in our new kitchen, BUT this purchase takes a considerable portion of our budget. We have worked really hard to save money for this kitchen and the appliances so we have pieces that can stand the test of time...and that can be serviced locally.
Here's what we have for our kitchen mood board so far:
Lastly, to finish off this space, I will be on the hunt for a large antique workbench or table that I can top with a marble slab to turn into a kitchen island. I love the look and authenticity that this will bring to our kitchen. The downside of an antique piece is the lack of functionality and storage space, but I'm hoping that my pantry will be large enough that this won't be an issue.
Oh, and you don't see pendant lights on this design board because I don't like them! I see these beautiful kitchens on Pinterest with these fantastic pendant lights, but when I picture them in my space, they seem to overcrowd and distract from the kitchen. Much against our contractors' wishes, we didn't hang pendant lights in our temporary house remodel, and I'm so glad we listened to our gut. In our rebuild, I feel like the pendant lights will compete with the beams.
I hope you enjoy our classic white kitchen layout, design board, and inspiration photos for our rebuild. I hope you get inspiration from these as much as we did. What are some things that you want for your dream kitchen? What do you think of our classic white farmhouse kitchen design ideas so far? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below. I can't wait to hear your feedback and share more of this project with you soon!
p.s. I’ll be updating my pantry inspiration post with my design board soon. In the meantime, find some drool-worthy pantries here!
Below are beautiful classic farmhouse-style kitchen inspiration photos that we are using for our design process.
shop our kitchen inspiration
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