Kitchen furniture: all the charm of shabby chic

Have you always dreamt of a shabby chic kitchen, but don't know where to start? Here are lots of tips on how best to furnish it and make it romantic and retro

Lo shabby chic is undoubtedly one of the most popular types of furniture in recent years, especially for those who appreciate simple, retro-style furniture with attention to detail, where nothing is left to chance.

The kitchen, in particular, is one of the rooms in the house that is best suited to being furnished according to the dictates of shabby chic because it allows play a lot with different materials of furniture, crockery and furnishing accessories. This is why a kitchen furnished in shabby chic style is one of the most frequent choices of those who are furnishing their home for the first time or wish to renovate it.

Lo shabby chic style is, in a way, the natural evolution of the country style that is, however, contaminated with vintage touches: literally shabby means 'unkempt', but the word chic immediately suggests the true nature of this style that is never really unkempt, but is characterised by the predominance of fake-looking furniture and accessorieswhen in fact everything is perfectly thought out.

In fact, one of the most frequent mistakes made by those who approach the shabby style is to think that it is enough to put together a bit of old furniture and add a few accessories to achieve the goal, but in reality this is not the case at all: those who love this style pay almost maniacal attention to objects and their arrangement, managing to balance the fake scruffy in an always well-calibrated and impeccable manner.

How to furnish therefore a shabby chic kitchen without making mistakes? Let's find out together.

Shabby chic kitchen: focus on materials and accessories

First of all, what counts when furnishing a kitchen in shabby chic style is undoubtedly the choice of materials and the right accessories. The furniture should be classic but not too classic, possibly in light wood or pickled artfully to give it that vintage touch that is the hallmark of shabby chic.

In order to pickle furniture, there are special techniques that consist of working on it with sandpaper and, if necessary, repainting it afterwards to give it an effect used.

In this furnishing style it is also possible to mix old and new furniture, perhaps revitalising older furniture - perhaps found in some antique shop - with some pastel paint.

Among the must-have pieces in a kitchen furnished in shabby chic style are undoubtedly the flattopwith a romantic retro flavour, and a cupboard like those once used to store bread.

In addition to wood, the other cornerstone material of the shabby chic style is the iron, preferably wrought ironThis can be used for the table and chairs, but also for accessories such as lamps or ornaments of various kinds.

However, what a shabby kitchen absolutely cannot lack are the right complementsFor a retro style like this, handles and knobs are indispensable, just like the Polideas' Anticati line.

In this line you can find all those accessories that go perfectly with the shabby style: knobs and handlesideal for antiqued furniture that looks like real metal, obtained through complex, innovative processing in which the aesthetic merits of lived-in metal are combined with the practicality and ergonomics of top-quality plastic materials.

For example, for larger furniture, the handles from the Arco or Round line,

while for the drawers, the handles of the Bridge line or the handle Nicheor the Small knobs e Mushroom.

Shabby chic kitchen: colours and original objects

Another cornerstone of every ckitchen furnished in shabby chic respectable is undoubtedly the choice of colour: in this style of furniture, the predominance of the light colours, preferably pastels. Light blue, pink, beige, but also peach and teal are among the most popular nuances for shabby chic lovers and lend themselves perfectly to be mixed elegantly with the light wood of kitchen furniture.

Green light, therefore, to these shades for walls and also for furniture, perhaps using some of these colours to repaint a carefully pickled piece of furniture.

Finally, great attention must be paid to objects: a shabby kitchen must not lack metal or copper tableware to decorate the walls, as well as wooden lanterns to place on shelves, a wrought-iron aviary, straw baskets for storing fruit and vegetables and, of course, tea towels and other kitchen linen in raw cotton. Finally, white linen curtains will give light to the whole room.