Making the kitchen more homely
Kitchens are planned for function and rarely looked at again afterwards. Yet in many homes the kitchen is the room in which the most time is spent – and at the same time one of the few that consist almost entirely of smooth, hard surfaces.
This is precisely why many kitchens feel cool. Lacquer, glass, stone and stainless steel reflect light evenly, absorb hardly any sound and show no texture. But a room only feels homely when it has irregularities: grain, warmth, visible differences in material. Making a kitchen more homely therefore rarely means rebuilding it – it means adding a few soft and irregular elements and reducing the rest.
The worktop sets the first impression
A kitchen feels homely to the extent that its surfaces are clear. Every appliance left out permanently shifts the impression towards a workshop – regardless of how good it looks.
The honest question is not what looks nice, but what is used every day. Whatever is used less than once a day belongs in a cupboard. It is worth going through each appliance individually on this basis; for most people, surprisingly few are left at the end.
For this to work in the long term, every appliance that is cleared away needs a fixed place in the cupboard. Anything without a place finds its way back onto the worktop within a few weeks. And what stays out looks calmer when the cables do not run visibly across the surface and the appliances stand together in one place instead of being spread across the whole run.
An object that does nothing
The difference between a tidy kitchen and a homely one often lies in a single item without a function.
A stone bowl with fruit, a vase with branches, a wooden board that simply stands there. Something that does not serve food preparation gives the room permission to be a living space. A single large object works better than three small ones, because it is read as a deliberate placement and not as somewhere to put things down.
It works best in a place where no work is done: the end of the run, a windowsill, the island away from the hob. There the object is not in the way and does not have to be moved constantly – a common reason why such things disappear from the kitchen again.
Warm light instead of task light
Kitchens are usually lit brightly and neutrally, because cutting and cooking happen there. That is right during the day and wrong in the evening.
What is missing is a second level: a warm light source at a low height that can shine on its own in the evening. A pendant light above the island, a small table lamp at the end of the worktop, the light under the wall cupboards switched to warm white.
What matters is that both levels can be switched separately. As long as there is only one switch, the task light always wins. Light colours up to about 3300 kelvin count as warm white; neutral white task light lies above that. The difference is more noticeable in the evening than during the day, because in low ambient brightness the eye orients itself by the warmest light source in the room.
Material against gloss
A kitchen consists of lacquer, glass, stainless steel and stone – all hard, all uniform. What is missing are surfaces with texture.
Wood is the most obvious antidote: a chopping board that stays out, a wooden handle, a shelf. Unglazed ceramic, clay and natural stone work in the same way, because they scatter light instead of mirroring it.
The effect becomes particularly clear when two materials meet in a single item and one of them is warm – glass with wood, metal with leather, stone with textile. Combinations like these break up the uniformity of a kitchen run more strongly than another piece in the same material. What matters more than the quantity is the height: warm surfaces at worktop and handle height change the feel of the room more noticeably than the same materials on top of a cupboard.
Textiles in the kitchen
Textile is the material most consistently missing in kitchens – and precisely for that reason it changes the most. Soft surfaces absorb sound, hard ones throw it back. A kitchen entirely without textiles sounds echoey, and this sound contributes more to the cool impression than most people realise.
Obvious choices are a flatweave runner in front of the kitchen run, tea towels in linen or half-linen that can be left on show, seat cushions on hard chairs and a curtain instead of just a roller blind. A tablecloth or a narrow runner on the dining table also counts.
Two practical limitations belong here as well: textiles in the kitchen absorb grease and smells, so washable natural fibres are the more sensible choice than delicate fabrics. And loose textiles have no place in the immediate vicinity of gas flames or hotplates.
Looking honestly at open shelves
Open shelves in the kitchen look good in photos and only work in everyday life on one condition: that everything on them goes together and there is little of it.
If you own different tableware ranges, you are better off with closed cupboards. If you have a uniform set – plates and cups from the same range, for instance – you can display it openly, and then the tableware itself becomes the decoration.
The second point that photos keep quiet about: open shelves in kitchens collect grease, because during cooking fine droplets of grease spread through the air and bind with dust. As a result they need more care than closed fronts. A workable compromise is a mix – closed cupboards for everything that does not need to be shown, and a single open compartment for what is in your hand every day and is therefore washed up regularly anyway.
Frequently asked questions
How does a kitchen become more homely?
Through clear worktops, warm light at a low height, material with texture, some textile and a single object without a function.
What should stand on the worktop?
As a rule of thumb, only what is really used every day. If you go through the appliances one by one, usually very few are left – everything else belongs in the cupboard.
What lighting suits the kitchen?
Two levels that can be switched separately: neutral task light for cooking and a warm, lower light source for the evening.
Do open shelves make sense in the kitchen?
Only with uniform tableware and little on them. They also need more cleaning than closed fronts, because grease from the cooking air settles on them.
Which materials make a kitchen warmer?
Wood, unglazed ceramic, natural stone and washable textiles – everything with visible texture as a counterweight to lacquer and stainless steel.
