Create an Enduring Natural Vibe in Your Kitchen

If you want to bring nature into your kitchen, the first obvious step is adding a plant or two. A string of pearls, pothos, and xerigraphia are some of our favorite plants for the kitchen right now.

But the next step is adding something old. Why do you ask? It turns out antiques are a powerful way to embrace both nature and the effects of time.

As Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “Nature is sanative, refining, elevating. How cunningly she hides every wrinkle of her inconceivable antiquity under roses, and violets, and morning dew! Every inch of the mountains is scarred by unimaginable convulsions, yet the new day is purple with the bloom of youth and love.”

Having a sense of nature in your kitchen gives the room that same power – the ability to help you feel more sane, refined, and elevated. The following kitchens show how you can bring that same feeling into your own kitchen, in a very practical and understated way.

Vintage Stools + Lighting

This transitional kitchen above is thoroughly modern. But it gets some grounding from touches that evoke a different era. The vintage milk glass light bar, armoire, and adjustable stools similar to ones popular in the industrial era all add texture. So do the vintage blue glass bottles, the boxwood topiaries, and the aged cutting board.

Subway Tile + Reclaimed Wood

This black and white kitchen with a big wall of subway tile by Jaimee Rose Interiors could feel stark and cold. But it’s anything but thanks to the warmth of the aged reclaimed wood on the ceiling beams, counter and industrial stools. The wood floating shelves and cutting boards take things further. The big messy vase of greenery adds to the space’s natural vibe.

A Touch of Green

Any time we see the color green, we feel calmer, and we can’t help but think of nature. This DeVOL studio kitchen painted in Farrow & Ball’s Arsenic green is such a refreshing change of pace. Its effect is amplified by the white soup tureens, fruit still lifes that evoke 17th-century Dutch paintings, and the burnished brass light fixtures with Edison bulbs.

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Well-Worn Woods

There’s so much to love about this unfitted kitchen by Marie of Dreamy Whites Lifestyle. It feels like it’s been there forever with the well-worn flooring, the butcher block work table and washstand that pairs unfinished wood with old metal mesh baskets below, and the subtle marble sink and drain above. The copper molds and lilacs are the icing on this dreamy space.

Those Windows

This bright and pretty kitchen shared by JLC Team Real Estate has so much to recommend it. The antique work table/island is a real find, as in the moody portrait, perhaps of an ancestor. But the biggest dose of the natural world comes in via the large steel frame windows over the stove and counter. Imagine standing there working and watching the show that unfolds with birds flitting around building nests, leaves changing and snow falling as the season changes. A view of nature is the best accessory any kitchen can have.