Barn style - Kitchen Clarity

Rustic Luxury

Feb 8, 2010

Today’s kitchen collection is all about comfortable, rustic style. Maybe we can’t all live in a converted farm building, but we can certainly pretend we do. I just love this combination of well-used copper, weathered wood, and functional stainless steel:

via atticmag.com

Then we have the beams, and the island, to die for – nothing matches? It’s just not meant to. And hanging a Murano glass chandelier in a barn is too perfect (via BrookeGiannetti):

Photo Architectural Digest

This Johnny Grey Studios kitchen echoes the barn aesthetic without actually being a barn at all – nobody does an unfitted kitchen like Johnny Grey. I don’t think anybody can do circles like Johnny Grey, either: (via)

Johny Grey Studios via housetohome

Now we have a contemporary kitchen, tucked into an all-cleaned-up rustic space – a nice combination, it becomes more loft than barn:

via style-files

The big trash can is handsome, but it might be just a little in the way here!

via style-files

This kitchen is a nice mixture of old and new – I’m loving the flagstones, and I’m always a sucker for a kitchen table:

photo Ray Main

This is the exterior of a refurbished stone barn in Galway, Ireland

Mark Guard Architects

and this is the kitchen it contains, apparently making no concessions at all to its rustic setting – this might as well be in a city condo, don’t you think?

Mark Guard Architects

I’ll admit, it is possible to have too much genuine rustic character, as in this candid shot from The Selby. But if you are lucky enough to live in a barn, why not enjoy it just a little bit?

Plenty of character, via The Selby

Brought up in a barn?

Oct 7, 2009

When I was a lass, living in the UK, suggesting that someone was “brought up in a barn” was to imply that they were totally lacking the social graces. After looking at this little gallery of country kitchens in converted farm buildings, I have to say I’d be happy to be brought up in one of these barns.

www.cottage-holiday.co.uk

This first one is an ancient stone barn in the Welsh border country – here’s the rugged exterior, so you can appreciate the gorgeous countryside too:

Ruthlin Barn Conversion Exterior

I don’t know about this one in particular, but often these stone barns are very ancient indeed. Some of them were actually farm-houses in Norman times, and were given over for use by animals as their human occupants became prosperous enough to build bigger and better houses. I like the fact that we’ve now gone in a full circle, and they are being reclaimed from the livestock and lived in again.

Here are two examples of charming country kitchens in French barn conversions – both available for vacation rentals. Wish I could be there!

www.holiday-cottages.co.uk

www.retreatrural.com

Mmmm – I can almost smell the baguettes … My final two are in England, the first snatched from the property pages of the Guardian, and the second from the unexpectedly fabulous lifestyle magazine Wealdentimes.