Mother-Daughter Rustic Kitchens

The “my mother myself” tendency proves out in a pair of rustic kitchens in Texas. t

A kitchen is the sum of many parts so it’s intriguing to see how a mother and daughter – both designers – use the same elements of rustic kitchens with original, but very different, stylistic results.

Houston designer Pam Pierce’s kitchen [top] was included in a piece on the much-admired Côte de Texas blog. What made it noteworthy to me was the successful blend of hacienda and European country –- not an easy marriage yet not as difficult as one might think. Due to the Hispanic heritage of the Southwest U.S., the two styles share a common vocabulary of whitewashed plaster walls, unvarnished wood beams, shutters, and natural stone used on floors and counters. Lanterns used as chandeliers have nearly become de rigueur in the vocabulary of Lone Star State decor.

The Pierce kitchen has all that plus an iconic marble-topped charcuterie table — in lieu of an island — that tends to say “France.” European flavor continues with divided-light steel windows and doors, wooden shutters and an absence of furniture-style cabinets. Lower cabinets have pine-plank country cabinet doors. The Longhorn cow’s head trophy over the sink (with a Viking dishwasher) telegraphs Texas or perhaps Latin America.

Then yesterday, leafing through a magazine, I spotted a pretty Swedish-inspired kitchen with white walls and a table that reminded me of Pierce’s. It stuck in my mind because a marble-topped table with a crenelated apron is a something I really covet. Coincidentally, the Swedish kitchen belongs to Pierce’s daughter, Shannon Bowers, a Dallas designer.

Both kitchens have the same style table with a lantern chandelier overhead. They use the identical Waterworks bridge faucets with offset legs, shutters as a motif and the same color palette. For the Swedish look, a 19th Century over-door carving sits above Bower’s kitchen window and while her cabinets are more traditional, they boast the old-is-new-again gathered curtain on the sink base. The “my mother myself” tendency proves out in the choice of accessories: a single, small Baroque style candelabra on the Bowers’ sink while Pierce displays a pair. “I developed my own sense of design,” Bowers says in Veranda, “but I do see her influence in my work.” We couldn’t agree more.

(Source: Côte de Texas, Veranda)

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