A Steampunk Kitchen

A steampunk kitchen is a challenge. Victorian kitchens were dark, hidden spaces not the center of a home kitchens are today. I recently ran across this kitchen in an early 90s design book --
Mary Gilliatt's Shortcuts to Great Decorating (the kitchen itself was designed by Pedro Guedes)and immediately thought it would appeal to steampunk aficionados.

What makes this kitchen steampunk, to me, is the wonderful woodworking and the cluttered "laboratory" feel of it.

The cabinets, I'm afraid, are custom work, and would require finding a local woodworker to manufacture for you (unless you happened to be particularly talented yourself in that way). The closest I could find online were craftsman style cabinets at kitchen design stores like Mosaik Design in Portland, Oregon.

I did find a pair of concertina arm brass lamps, like the ones pictured, at an online antiques site for -- gulp -- £358 pair.

The white marble counter top? Again, pricey, but available at most kitchen design places or even your big box home improvement stores. Apartment Therapy had a good article on white marble counter tops a while back.

Gooseneck faucets are easy to find. Here's one at online retailer Plumbing World.

What about the clutter? Do you really need my suggestions on that? I'd get a test tube spice rack. Store your pastas and beans in plain sight or in glass doored cabinets in old fashioned looking glass jars. Fill in with neat containers found in thrift stores or antique shops.

Spending this kind of money on a kitchen doesn't quite strike me as a steampunk approach to things -- where's the reuse? Where's the do it yourself? If you like the look, I'd suggest a lot of patience and looking at unfinished furniture stores, Ebay and architectural salvage yards. I think you could create something with a similar feel -- perhaps with a commission to build a spice rack like the one towards the left in the picture -- with quite a bit of ingenuity.