The case for a cane kitchen

After evaluating several kitchen options, which I shared on the blog, I thought I had a direction but I wasn’t fully set on it. This was my favorite (and the general favorite by a landslide on the instagram vote!):

What I loved about it was the clean, serene color of the cabinets, the natural texture of the wood juxtaposed with the marble, and the way the space felt balanced with the floor and ceiling finished in the same manner. Most of all, I loved how minimalist and uncluttered the space felt. The layout was super functional and I love having the ability to look out over the back yard from both the sink and the range. Aesthetically, I love this option, however, there were a few lingering thoughts that pushed me to continue to think through the option.

First, I thought about how we use this space. Would we be able to keep it decluttered? Would it actually look like this with little/no effort? Did we have appropriate space for everything we needed to house? While this is a getaway and not an everyday home I initially felt strongly that we could live with a more minimal kitchen. I still feel we could but fear we may outgrow this over the next few years and if we were to move, I’d want the kitchen to be appealing to buyers. I didn’t feel like this kitchen sold the home.

Second, the empty wall was bothering me big-time. I planned to put a large scale art piece with a light above it but when I tested it out, I didn’t love it as much as I had originally thought. While it did do the job of making the kitchen feel more like a ‘room’ I still had reservations. When I thought about this alongside my first concern about having enough space, I knew I wanted to steal some space from the adjacent bathroom and make the empty wall a full storage wall.

Finally, I tested this option with a white ceiling (my worst-case scenario for the ceiling) and it felt too sterile without the warmth the ceiling provides. I want to make sure that the cabinet aesthetic is not dependent upon something that may need to change depending on budget and logistics constraints.

Inspiration

While I was stewing over this in one area of my brain, another area was hard at work thinking through the bathroom that is just on the other side of that blank wall. I had pulled a lot of great imagery of cane dressers, closets, side tables, and chairs. I thought bringing cane into he bathroom on the vanity would be a great solution to add warmth and texture into an otherwise often cold-feeling space. The more I looked at it and the more I stewed over the kitchen, the more I thought it was worth at least testing out. I had never seen a kitchen use cane for the cabinets and I loved that it would be a surprising finish for the kitchen but super approachable.

I had gathered a lot of inspiration ranging from the Aesop store in Singapore to a Charleston home by Workstead and many great furniture references. There definitely seems to be a ‘trend’ as cane is popping up in a lot of places, however, I don’t consider it a ‘trendy’ material. Here are a few reference points:

Charleston Residence by Workstead

The Beach House by Studio Esteta

Renderings

For this round of renderings, I tested each concept with white ceilings so that I knew the ‘worst-case scenario’ and if I was happy with that, I knew I’d be happy with the outcome. Based on the reference images, I felt the right direction was to overlay the cane over a light wood modern take on a shaker cabinet.

The renderings below illustrate my initial direction - the wood and cane mix. The wood is not the exact color I’d be looking to use but it is close enough that you can get a sense of it. I love this option and think it stands on its own and works well with the white ceiling.

While I loved the prior option, I wanted to see if I could make it feel a bit less heavy as the wood did feel more monolithic with the cane. To achieve this, I tested white cabinets with the cane webbing. I loved this option too - this became the one to beat! It was much more in line and balanced with what we have going on elsewhere in the home and the right hand side didn’t feel so heavy.

Because I sometimes surprise myself with what I like, I wanted to test out a few more finishes. Here I tested out a dark wood:

I don’t love this for this space, definitely too dark. That being said, it’s super sophisticated and I think it would look incredible in a moodier space. I may try this at a smaller scale as a bathroom vanity. Stay tuned!

Finally, I wanted to test out black because I had seen so many chic furniture pieces with the black juxtaposed with the warmth and texture of the cane. Having seen the dark wood option above, I knew this was going to be too dark for the space but wanted to test it anyway to see how the combination looked in millwork rather than smaller-scale furniture:

Yup, obviously not right for this space but looks good at the larger scale and again, would be great in a moodier space. Filing this away for another project!

What do you think? What is your favorite option? Share in comments below!