The Tuscan décor seems to be the most popular theme out there when it comes to home decorating, especially the kitchen. One of the significant things to learn when using a Tuscan design is that you must give life to your kitchen with colors. It can be anything related to the sun. You want to feel as if you have the sun coming into your kitchen. Even having a window which allows the sun come in during the daytime can add to your Tuscan theme. In my kitchen, I used a yellow color on the walls with accented maroon. The Tuscan world is related to old world. So everything that has an antique look can further be used for the benefit of a Tuscan theme. Being Italian, I knew there were fixed elements you need to focus in a home to create a Tuscan Theme. Some of the elements are arching, wood, columns, copper, brick, and an overall rustic look.
Note the pictures in this article of the before and after renovation of my kitchen. I wanted a Tuscan theme throughout the house but especially in the kitchen and living room area. The area is small and I had to be creative in designing it. I first interviewed an architect that was going to charge me $3,000 just for a design plan for the whole house. I almost choked on that amount. All I wanted was someone to give me a design for the kitchen. Well, lucky for me, I did find a very talented and affordable carpenter. So, my husband and I sketched a few things out.
For our windows and doors, he put a Tuscan like trim around them. Actually the trims around the windows and door were an inexpensive way of adding a lot of charm to the room. In addition, you don’t need curtains because of this type framing. It adds the old world charm feeling. Then, we took out a sliding door that lead from the kitchen to the patio and replaced it with French doors that have little blinds inside the glass. Our carpenter was able to get it for us at a whole sale price but later we also saw it at Lowes.
We had a weird shape to our kitchen and an odd entry into the house. So we had to also factor in some dry wall modifications which included an arch to separate the kitchen from the living room.
If you look at the before and after pictures attached to this article, you can see we also added two columns as a decorative feature. We bought those columns on the Internet. And my husband was able to install them easily. With a Tuscan theme, you want simplicity. Less is best. For instance, for the columns you want a smooth look that tapers up with no fancy bases. In addition to the crown molding around the windows, we added a chair rail that also helps keep the kitchen and living room separate, but yet it still flows together.
We had a hard time finding someone to do our cabinets and we were trying to avoid going to Home Depot due to the horror stories we had heard about them. However, we did get a very good designer that helped create an arched look with our cabinets. We told her how we had limited floor space and how I didn’t want to add a floor curio to display my statues. So she suggested small bistro cabinets on top of the tall kitchen cabinets. These cabinets were a perfect addition for displaying. We could have added a lot of extras like moldings and special ornamental sconces but those items were adding up the total beyond our budget. So we kept it simple as the tradition Tuscan theme suggests. We were very satisfied with the Home Depot experience. We ended up with Kraftmaid Cabinets.
The total cost with hardwood floors, basically a new kitchen with new appliances, French doors and moldings were around $30,000. We actually took a small space and made it look larger with the right design. Now, we get a “wow” effect whenever someone new walks into our home.
