Quite true about original. Here is the original kitchen in a Greek Revival I looked at:

The appropriate kitchens for your house would probably be anything from the first "Modern" kitchen the house had, meaning post-Edwardian looking: painted cabinets, wood or soapstone counters etc.

Any traditional raised panel cabinet (if your house has raised panel doors)--with raw brass or black hardware.

or, Something super contemporary placed in a space that looks traditional architecturally, as is often done in Europe or Great Britain.

What would not likely be appropriate would be something that is a distinct "other" historical style: No Craftsman, No Tuscan-Italianate, No "50s-Diner/Kitsch" etc.

Hi, Messymarsy. By now I imagine you've seen Mamadadapaige's post on their completed kitchen, which is the first "page." That's an older house, and what they did it is a beautiful illustration of the kind of latitude Pal is describing.

I ADORE Mmadadapaige's kitchen, but I think it may have too contemporary a "feel" for Messymarsy's home. I am thinking Sayde's gumwood vintage kitchen, or Orchidluvr's. They're both Victorian era, which is 80-100 years newer than Messymarsy's, but I agree with Palimpsest about what a 200-year-old house would have in the way of its first "modern" kitchen.

Orchidluvr's Kitchen

Sayde's Gumwood Kitchen

It looks like you tried to post a picture but all I see is an [X]. Can you try and repost it? I also agree with Pal and akchicago. You might want to visit CrownPoint Cabinetry's web site and also Kennebec. They both do a lot of kitchens in antique homes and you'll see the results in their portfolios. This Old House's web site may also be a good resource for you.

And speaking of mamadadapaige, you should also check out her first kitchen. That was in an antique home as well (linked below).

Here is a link that might be useful: Mamadadapaige's First Kitchen

I don't know if it'll help, but my house is nearly 200 years old, and I just redid (partially) the kitchen. It'll give you some ideas, if nothing else. I've kept my house very traditional, but still completely modernized.

Here is a link that might be useful: My kitchen remodel.

trying again! Thanks for the input. I love mama's kitchen. Actually since the style of the house is Federal the simple cabinetry would work well. I think it integrates well without trying to make a fake colonial kitchen, I don't need any cauldrons lol. now if I can just do as good a job of designing it as she did.

well it posted but I have no idea why it is sideways lol

Maybe someone will recognize this kitchen--I know I originally found the pictures here, but don't know the gardenweb username of the poster. Anyway, this kitchen is a nice example of a new kitchen blending in with the style of an older home while not being wedded to one particular period.

Here is a link that might be useful: dcsapski?

Owner of of 165 +/- year old Greek revival home here.

Ok, first thing to understand about old houses is that you can't really have a reproduction peruiod kitchen and have a modern function kitchen in the same space. The technology has just changed too much. I'm assuming hot and cold running water are required, right?

Second, from the picture of your house I can see it is not a first-settlement level structure so:

a) Understand that the original kitchen would not have been the full-time working space of the homeowner's wife, mother or sister. It would have been staffed by some variety of domestic worker(s). This is a fundamental difference between then and now. Decorative choices for spaces not occupied by the homeowner's family are always more utilitarian.

b) The present-day fantasy of the "great room, open to the kitchen food prep area" would also NOT have been accurate. After the era of primitve settlement-period dwellings, by the early 1800s the almost universal presence of domestic workers meant that the kitchen cooking areas were always separated from the dining and sitting room areas. Only extremely poor people, almost at the peasant level, or first settlers in newly-opened areas lived and cooked in the same space.

Third, your house was on the cusp of a significant design style change and you should look carefully at it to discern where it falls. At the end of the 1700's through about 1840 (depending on how quickly the new styles were adopted) was the period of Federal style. This means smaller-scale, and finely made but simple moldings, trim, proportions, but not quite as delicate as the style preceeding it, Georgian. The succeeding style, Greek Revival, is bolder in scale, often wider, more ovoid-based moldings. There is sometimes a kind of muddling between them, but it's usually possible to separate the styles pretty clearly. Neither of them, of course, has the floridness of the later Victorian style(s).

It would be useful I think, after you have determined which style your house largely falls in, to visit old house museum buildings to strengthen your eye for the appropriate scale of decorative treatments. This is not to say you will be looking to copy the various historical kitchen arrangements, they don't work with modern needs. You would be trying to fix in your mind the shape and scale of the decorative details: moldings, baseboards, door styles, proportions of the rooms, etc. These can then be approximated when choosing cabs, trim, and so forth. That way the modern fixtures will blend in to what your building already is, instead of being at cross purposes, design-wise.

Don't get muddled up by contemporary recreations of older-seeming buildings. Find the real thing when training your eyes. Otherwise you will be copying a copy of a copy.

For instance I often see really fat, heavily-turned, legs or columns and gargoylian corbels (all late Victorian elements) combined with delicate Federal-scale inset cabs. It all may appear to be an historical style, or "transitional", or whatever, but if these elements are in the same piece, it just makes me dizzy.

Of course, you can have any style kitchen you want, as throughout time kitchen upgrades have happened according to the tastes and desires of the current owners. Some of the modern ones such as "French Provincial" or "Tuscan" being faux styles (meaning that were always fake, and not representing anything that actually ever existed to begin with) will be less likely to be successful. But you could, if your heart was set on it, have any authentic style of kitchen that came after your building's creation on the grounds that it might have been installed by some previous homeowner in the then-current newer style.

The difficulty is that until after WW II many of the now-necessary appliances, amenities, and functional details didn't exist so you are stuck with trying to graft them on to an imaginary recreation of an interpretation of an earlier period. You can see how you can fall into the weeds here.

It always seems simpler to me to study your house to get the massing and scale imprinted in your design sense. Understand how the orginal room uses worked and why they were what they were, and then set about choosing design elements that blend well with what is already there. Something about the house attracted you in the first place. If those were original elements, then strengthen the connection to them when choosing how to arrange and decorate your kitchen.

If, OTOH, you're attracted to a completely modern design (I'm not referring to recently made stuff, but the Modern or Contemporary styles), then these can also work quite well as long as you get the scaling right: more delicate for a Federal structure and bolder for a Greek Revival one.

You didn't say where you are, but my final advice is to resist the urge to falsley farmhouse-i-fy an urban structure. City people always had access to superior materials, more fashion-forward styling and more skilled craftsman.

The reverse is true for me. As the owner of a really rural farmhouse built before the Civil War but in, even then, a late-appearing, country-made imitation of the elegant Greek Revival style, I can readily see the difference. It would play my much-loved, but truly country-cousin version of GR false if I added high-style GR details.

HTH,

L.

Even though it's about Colonial Revival styles rather than anything authentically colonial or federalist or whatnot, you could start here.

Great post, Liriodendron!

Are you looking to go historically accurate? Then you need to do the research. If not, I would go through Houzz and bookmark any traditional/transitional kitchens that are pleasing to your eye. Then go back and look at what trends developed as to elements that pleased you.

I may have mixed different historical and faux styles in my kitchen, but overall, it gives a traditional feel that I love being in.

It might be interesting to note that it's become very popular to install very modern kitchens in old houses in the UK (and Europe generally) simply because it's a great look. Homeowners realize they don't cook on open coal ranges - unless you are going for a historically correct kitchen (which none of us would actually cook in) then why not? I've seen - and cooked in - some stunning modern kitchens in old houses and they worked perfectly and felt entirely right, because old houses do get tweaked over time and updated in other areas, so why not this most functional of areas?

We rented a thatched cottage, built in 1705, for 5 weeks a while ago. It had a wonderful modern kitchen and it never felt inappropriate. Personally, I prefer that than an attempt to create something that is 'faux authentic'. YMMV :)

I love learning from everyone on here about stuff like this - the expertise here is amazing.

(I have a not so old house (1920) but when I did our kitchen I did everything wood consistent with the rest of the house - floors, trim, windows, but everything metal like faucets, hood, and hardware were more modern and a bit more of what I love. It helped me balance old and new, and was a shortcut for all of the millions of decisions.)

Can't wait to see how your kitchen turns out - the house sounds incredible!

Kevin ty for sharing the work in your house is beautiful. The craftsmanship is good and the proportions work well with the existing wood work, I think it is a great example of blending the modern with the antique

The shell certainly has charm and proportion going for it. Here is the uprighted picture.