Inty AIFarmhouse Kitchen Ideas
Nine farmhouse versions of the same real kitchen, all shot from the same spot.
BeforeFarmhouse is the most-searched kitchen style, and most of the kitchens it gets fitted into have never been near a farm. This one is a small L-shaped galley in an ordinary building. One window, a hob under the extractor, a sink on the right, about four square feet of floor to stand in. Half of farmhouse lands here perfectly well. Shaker doors fit any carcass. A butler sink fits the run on the right. Brass cup handles, oak worktops, terracotta pots on a shelf, a jute runner: all proportionate. The other half is borrowed from a bigger house. A range cooker needs a wall this kitchen does not have. A pantry needs a room. Nine versions below. The useful question for each one is not whether it looks good, it is what you would have to rip out first.
9 versions of farmhouse
Cream shaker, black soapstone
Cream shaker with aged brass cup pulls, black soapstone, cream tile, brass sconces screwed straight into the splashback, and oak-lined shelf boxes holding black urns and small gilt-framed landscapes. The doors and handles are a weekend. The soapstone is a trade, and it wants oiling every few months or it goes patchy grey exactly where you chop.
Copper pans over cement tile
Cream shaker, aged brass cups, an oak block worktop, and the original white square tile left exactly where it was. Reclaimed shelves loaded with copper pans, a galvanised barn pendant, a brass anglepoise on the counter, patterned cement tile underfoot. The cheapest honest version here: doors and handles, plus a block top you can cut yourself. Those copper pans go dull brown in a month unless you polish them.
Sage green and terracotta
Sage bases, oak worktop, terracotta square tile with a cream brick panel behind the hob, a copper and glass pendant, copper pans and a copper kettle on the shelves, two small landscape paintings by the window. The tile is the trade job and it earns its money. The paintings are what make this read as a house rather than a showroom.
Pink tile, brass cups
Cream shaker, brass cups, dark speckled stone, and dusty pink tile behind the hob. A vintage brass scale, a copper kettle, a white oven with white knobs, wide rustic oak boards. The pink is the only brave decision in the set and it works, because everything around it stays quiet. It is also the thing you cannot undo for under a grand.
Cream shaker with a marble slab
Cream shaker, brass cups and knobs, a marble worktop that carries on up the wall as one slab, brass swan-neck sconces by the window, a brass bridge tap, walnut shelf boxes, a gold toaster. The slab is the whole budget and the whole risk. Marble behind a gas hob takes oil spatter and holds onto it. Lovely for two years, then it is a map of your dinners.
Olive units under a plank ceiling
Olive shaker bases, cream shaker uppers, brass bar handles, a stone sink with a brass tap, terracotta herb pots on shelves lit from underneath, a jute rug, oak boards run across the ceiling. Units and paint are the easy half. Cladding a ceiling in oak is not, and it takes light out of a room that has one window. The shelf lighting is buying that back.
Oak units, one long shelf
Mid-brown oak shaker, matte black handles, black soapstone, cream tile, one reclaimed plank on iron brackets running the whole wall, a plaster chimney hood with a wood mantel, botanical prints, a Persian runner on dark boards. Every upper cabinet is gone. It looks wonderful and it costs you half your storage, which in a galley this size you do not have to give.
Green walls and a table
Dark green walls above white brick tile, in-frame cream units, oak worktop, brass bridge taps over two butler sinks, a wooden chandelier with linen shades, quarry tile floor, a round oak table with spindle chairs. This is the one borrowing a bigger house. A second sink under the window means a plumber and a new run of pipe, and the table only fits if nobody needs the oven open.
Hearthside oak island
Oak shaker units, a black hood over terracotta tile, a stone worktop, candles actually lit on the counter, squash and apples piled like a still life, and an oak island holding the middle of the room. The candles-and-produce styling is doing what the paintings do in the refined version: making it read as lived-in. The island is the borrow from a bigger house this time — in the real galley there is nowhere to stand once it lands. The rest translates straight across.
See your own kitchen in Farmhouse style
Every render on this page is one real kitchen, redesigned. Point Inty at yours: it reads the layout from a single photo, then rebuilds it in Farmhouse and 200+ other styles. Your actual room, not a showroom.
Free to try. iPhone.
Questions
- Can you do a farmhouse kitchen without a range cooker?
- Yes, and most people have to. Cream shaker, black soapstone and Copper pans over cement tile both keep a normal built-in oven under the hob, and neither of them suffers for it. Oak units, one long shelf does the same. A range wants a metre of dedicated wall plus the extraction to match, which a galley like this cannot spare. The style is carried by the doors, the handles and the worktop, not by the cooker.
- What is the cheapest way to get a farmhouse kitchen?
- Handles and paint are a Saturday. Cabinet doors are a weekend and a delivery, and they fit the carcasses you already have. Copper pans over cement tile is the version that stops there: new doors, aged brass cups, a block worktop, and the original white tile left alone. Everything past that is trade money. Worktops and splashbacks need a fitter, and anything involving the sink or the hob needs a plumber too.
- Is a butler sink worth it in a small kitchen?
- It is the single most recognisable farmhouse move and it has a real cost beyond the price. A butler sink sits proud and deep, so you lose the cupboard under it to the bowl and the trap. Sage green and terracotta and Oak units, one long shelf both take that hit on the right-hand run. Green walls and a table adds a second one under the window, which is a pipe run you are paying a plumber for.
- Does open shelving actually work day to day?
- It works if you own things worth looking at and you dust. Oak units, one long shelf trades every upper cabinet for a single plank, which is the boldest version here and the one that will hurt in a kitchen this small. Cream shaker, black soapstone is the compromise: shelf boxes in the middle, closed doors either side. Olive units under a plank ceiling lights its shelves from beneath, which flatters the pottery and shows the dust.
- Does farmhouse work in a small kitchen?
- Half of it does, and the split is clean. Shaker doors, cup handles, a butler sink and terracotta pots all scale down to a galley without complaint. The range, the pantry and the kitchen table do not. Green walls and a table is the version borrowing a bigger house — the table only fits if nobody opens the oven. Cream shaker, black soapstone is the same style honestly sized.
- What colours are farmhouse?
- Cream and sage are the safe pair, olive is the deeper cut, and aged brass hardware is the constant that ties all eight together. Green walls and a table shows the dark end of the range. Pink tile, brass cups is the one brave call on this page, and it works because everything around the pink stays cream and quiet.
