Traditional and High Tech Can Coexist in Kitchen

By Rita St. Clair

Antiques such as the harvest table and other no-tech accessories seen here, can help take the edge off a kitchen filled with stainless steel and modern gadgets.

Kitchens and bathrooms are without a doubt the parts of the home most frequently updated, remodeled or altogether transformed.

In the case of the kitchen, it might be due to the preference -- or, these days, the growing necessity -- for eating at home regularly. But it also has to do with Americans' love for the latest gadgets.

And if you're one of those who gets excited about advances in home technology, the kitchen and bathroom are certainly the places to put them to use. Local furniture shops probably won't be carrying any new interplanetary pieces for the living room this year.

QUESTION:

We're planning to redo the large kitchen of a home in a rural area with an informal interior design. My wife and I both enjoy preparing food with our "armada" of kitchen appliances, but we're wondering how all those digital widgets will look in a rustic setting. Is there a way to integrate them with our sturdy country furniture?

ANSWER:

I'm always happy to hear from someone who isn't a fashion victim -- which, in your case, would mean giving the kitchen a hip trendy, contemporary look even if it were out in the country.

As regular readers know, I've never had a problem with mixing different sorts of pieces, as long as they're good looking and scaled appropriately to the setting. That goes double for large spaces. They lend themselves especially well to eclectic designs.

It's common today for even average-size kitchens to include humongous pieces of equipment that are actually better suited to commercial than residential use. And there's no point in lamenting that trend. The challenge professional designers face is to make a space look attractive and function well, regardless of whether we share a client's aesthetics or lifestyle.

I say this to assure you that high-tech appliances can be integrated successfully with rustic kitchen furniture. Antiques harvest tables, unmatched chairs and no-tech accessories such as baskets and serving pieces will help mellow a hard-edged kitchen filled with stainless steel.

For further inspiration, please see the accompanying photo that comes from one of my favorite coffee-table books, "1000 Home Ideas." Firefly Books publishes this collection of photos of wonderful rooms with only two pages of text -- a real show and tell book by Stafford Cliff.

I don't know if you already have or are planning to add a wood oven, but you can see here how it and a harvest table can be beautifully combined with 21st century kitchen equipment.

Kitchen Design - Traditional and High Tech Can Coexist in Kitchen