Adding Soft Furnishings to your Kitchen
At its core, designing a kitchen involves choosing solid materials and components – a stone benchtop, timber flooring or a copper light fitting. But adding soft furnishings to your kitchen and dining space is important too, as softer elements like upholstery, curtains and rugs can elevate your kitchen and tie your whole design together.
Choosing soft furnishings is often left to the last minute; homeowners will scramble to find the right curtains to match their colour palette, or try to upholster seat cushions in barely any time. A better way to do it is to integrate your choices about soft furnishings into your renovation plans from the very beginning. Here are our tips on how to choose soft furnishings for a cohesive look and feel in your kitchen.
Curtains
Curtains and blinds don’t just control the light and privacy levels in your space; the right fabric, colour or pattern can work to tie your whole design palette together, or breathe fresh life into the room. When choosing fabric, look at your room as a whole: is your space overwhelmed with pattern already? Choose a curtain in a block, complementary colour to tone things down. If you want to draw attention to the windows, a patterned curtain could do just the trick.
Tip: As your kitchen can get hot, humid and messy, choose a style of curtain that you’ll be able to wash easily – one that slides on and off a rod is perfect.
Upholstery
Upholstery is a perfect way of updating furniture that still has a sturdy frame – but which is covered with fabric that has seen better days. Most commonly, we see the seats of stools and dining chairs re-upholstered, as this provides homeowners the opportunity to add little pops of colour to their space.
You may have your piece already (from an antiques store or ancestor), or you may have stumbled across a piece you love the structure of. In general, synthetic fabrics work better in kitchens as they repel stains, are water resistant are are much more durable than their natural counterparts.
Tip: A professional upholsterer will be able to give you advice on the best fabrics to choose and will be able to complete the job for you, so your piece is polished and perfected.
Adding decor
Smaller, less permanent pieces are easy to integrate into the kitchen to provide pockets of pattern or colour. Add cushions to your chairs, rugs to dining areas and ornaments made by local artists and designers, and other soft pieces to add visual warmth and depth to your space.
Tip: Ensure that each element you add can withstand the spills and stains found in a kitchen – or at least make sure you’ll easily be able to wash the item if it gets dirty.
For inspiration on how to add soft furnishings into your kitchen for visual warmth and depth, speak to an interior design specialist at Apollo Kitchens. We’ll help you develop a cohesive kitchen in your chosen style.
