Inspiration

TED NEALE CARPENTRY

KITCHEN CABINETS AND FASHION TRENDS: ARMOIRES TO TURN YOUR MODERN UTILITY KITCHEN INTO FRENCH FARMHOUSE CHIC.

Kitchen cabinets are as susceptible to changing trends as fashion. You don’t have an island yet? Don’t worry. If you wait a bit longer before installing one, you could find that they‘re, like, so over. You could even find yourself leading the way in the latest kitchen trend for an 80’s revival.

Now 80’s retro may not be everyone’s idea of cutting edge kitchen cabinet design. But some people find modern minimalism impractical for the reality of home life. If you hanker after a kitchen straight out of the pages of the style magazines, but one that isn’t cold and impersonal, a different type of retro could be the answer.

There is a new trend in kitchen cabinets that has it’s inspiration in French farmhouses and gittes. Families that have holidayed in France are copying the French trend for free standing armoires (French for cupboard) in the kitchen. The French love a good armoire. They particularly like display cabinets with glass doors and use them to store their crockery and kitchen utensils. Plates and pans are displayed with fabulous French nonchalance. And if the crockery is mismatching – all the better. It’s a perfect example of shabby chic that the French do without even trying. Add an artfully battered and much loved kitchen table and voila! The transformation is complete.

Like all trends, if you want to buy a fashionably chic French cabinet, it would cost you an armoire and a leg. Rather like spending hundreds of pounds on pre-ripped jeans or jewel encrusted designer crocs. But you don’t need a huge budget to recreate your own kitchen en Provence. Take a look at what you can find in second hand furniture stores and junk shops. You might even have an old cabinet lurking in the garage, or inherited one from a relative. Cabinets that have seen better days can be easily renovated for a fraction of the cost of buying a brand new antique. And you’ll be able to polish your recycling halo as well.

Of course, renovating furniture takes time, which is a rare commodity in modern lives. You may not have time to renovate your amazing find and turn it into the armoire of your imagination. So this is where Ted Neale Carpentry comes in.

Ted’s speciality is renovating furniture, so do take a look at the cabinets and dressers he has transformed from tired and tatty workaday items into beautiful and desirable pieces of furniture. And if you want to be part of the next style revolution in kitchen cabinets but haven’t got a cupboard in need of transformation, Ted takes commissions for bespoke pieces made to your specifications.

The trend doesn’t have to stop in the kitchen either. Armoires and display cabinets make fabulous focal points all over the house, from sitting rooms and dining rooms, bedrooms and bathrooms and hallways and landing. Vive la cabinet revolution!