Scandinavian Kitchen Design (80 Photos)

A Scandinavian-style kitchen is a superb option for those who love cleanliness, space, and coolness. This Northern European interior resembles freshly fallen, untouched snow. There are specks of gray, blue, and beige colors, but white plays the central role. You’ll find more details about the characteristic features of the Scandinavian style in kitchen interiors below.

Main features of the Scandinavian style

The Scandinavian style is borrowed from the inhabitants of the cold North. Mostly, the landscapes of Norway, Sweden, Denmark are snow-capped peaks, icy rivers, winding fjords, a veil of fog, sparkling frost on the trees, and bright lights in the windows of compact houses. Thus, nature itself inspires people to use familiar frosty shades in the interior. Here, saturated berry-fruit colors seem utterly exotic, while the pure tones of water, mountain ranges, and sky look very appropriate.

The Scandinavian style is characterized by simplicity, conciseness, clear lines, and an abundance of light. The sun is a rare visitor in the northern regions, so its absence is compensated by a large number of spot lamps, glowing strips, and light fixtures. Glossy white, silver, mirrors, glass, chrome surfaces reflect the rays, making the house more spacious and filling it with freshness.

Choosing color for a Scandinavian-style kitchen

Nordic design implies a calm palette, but it’s not the sharp black and white modern style nor the industrial loft. It’s closer to nature, so natural inclusions are allowed here: the rose-gold hues of sunset, the greenish shades of the forest, the deep blue of lakes, the marble glints of stones. To create a harmonious Scandinavian-style kitchen interior, you can simply use the color and texture palette from the winter Northern European landscape.

White Kitchen

Pure, without any impurities, this color is an indispensable background for the Scandinavian style. White must be present in the ceiling finish and, preferably, the walls. It can be mirror-smooth or matte, fluffy.

Kitchen in Pastel Tones

When the sunset reflects on the snow and the light-gray clouds get tinged with purple-pink and gold, it’s time for winter magic. The colors of the Northern Lights will look effective as decorative accents, but it’s best to use them for lighting. You can easily recreate the gradients from purple to sun-yellow with colored light bulbs.

Gray Kitchen

In Norwegian landscapes, gray takes up a lot of space: looming clouds, fog, darkening evening forest, sheer cliffs, rocks, roads, and streams. On one hand, gray can be metallic, glossy, on the other, slightly rough or smoky-clustered, silvery, semi-transparent, or almost black. All this allows for versatile use of gray in the finish, appliances, furniture, and decor.

Blue Kitchen

A deep color of dark water or cooling sky should always be smooth in any case. It can provide an unusual contrast background for white, steel or wooden furniture. Cold blue-toned furniture, ceramics, wall decorations look very beautiful.

Bleached Wood Color

The texture of lightened oak, spruce, pine gives a Scandinavian kitchen interior tranquility, making it warmer and cozier. You can use this color for a parquet floor, cabinet fronts, door panel, window frames, countertops, dining area, wall fragments or ceiling beams.

Green Kitchen

In Scandinavia, it’s represented by shades of coniferous trees, moss, and water. Inclusions of pastel or bluish-green should be small, otherwise the kitchen style will gradually transition into Provence.

Materials and Kitchen Finishing in Scandinavian Style

Creating an aesthetic design, color and texture of surfaces play a crucial role. With a large variety of finishing materials, it’s easy to get lost, but if you show creativity, the result will undoubtedly please.

Floor

When choosing a floor covering for the kitchen, remember that you’ll likely have to clean it often. Because of low water resistance, laminate should be positioned further from the stove and sink. Ceramic tile, artificial stone, linoleum, self-leveling floor will be appropriate in the cooking area. Natural parquet of the color of bleached oak and boards painted white or gray also harmonize very well here.

For a small Scandinavian style kitchen, a monochrome floor, black and white checkerboard, patchwork tile will be suitable. You can also use the last two options for finishing the kitchen backsplash.

Walls

Scandinavian style provides for bright white walls without unnecessary frills. Their design should be as simple as possible. Even coating, painting, smooth vinyl wallpapers, glazed ceramic tiles look wonderful in a small kitchen.

It’s better to make the kitchen backsplash stain-resistant, for example, use brickwork, face the surface with artificial granite or marble, or apply a film with a black-gray geometric pattern. A colored or monochrome white mosaic, as well as patchwork tiles, would look interesting in the niche between the countertop, hob, sink and upper cabinets.

Ceiling

To visually expand the vertical space, it’s advisable to make the ceiling of a small kitchen in a Scandinavian style light. Painting, matte stretch film, or white board siding will suit for this purpose.

Textiles

Light, semi-transparent curtains or light Roman shades on the windows; a cotton or linen achromatic tablecloth (white, gray, small black-and-white checkered); narrow runners, woven rugs; and sofa cushions for the dining area in rich colors or white with ethnic embroidery can harmoniously complete the kitchen design.

Furniture and appliances for a kitchen in the Scandinavian style

For the kitchen to be enjoyable, you should carefully choose the furniture and appliances. These items need to be reliable, functional, and beautiful, while not taking up a lot of space.

Kitchen set

Depending on the room layout, the kitchen set can be straight (against one wall), L-shaped, U-shaped, or located in fragments. For a small kitchen in a Scandinavian style, it’s better to choose a light façade without prominent elements (for example, white with subtle wooden countertops).

If you need to visually raise the ceiling, the doors should be rectangular and elongated upwards, and horizontal elements can help widen a narrow wall. To maximize the use of vertical space, the kitchen set should be tall, almost reaching the ceiling.

Dining area

A distinctive feature of furniture in the Scandinavian style is simplicity and the right lines. The table and chairs design is light yet sturdy. Thin wooden or steel-colored legs can be located exactly at the corners of the product or be slightly shifted towards the center, forming a trapezoid.

To create a comfortable dining area, compact corner sofas in white, gray, blue, light blue are also used. You can place vibrant decorative pillows on them.

Storage systems

The concise northern design implies cleanliness and order. Enclosed constructions handle this best. There should be as few open racks as possible, so that the items placed on them do not create a sense of clutter.

Built-in appliances, as well as various pull-out, fold-out, transforming shelves and drawers can help save space in a small kitchen.

Refrigerator

Choosing a refrigerator for the Scandinavian style is very easy. Classic white, silver, chrome colors will fit perfectly into the winter interior. To ensure this piece of technology doesn’t take up much space, prefer compact, built-in models with flat doors.

You can install a small refrigerator compartment at eye level in the kitchen set, place it under the hob or window. If possible, during construction or remodeling, consider making a niche in the wall for the refrigerator.

Scandinavian kitchen decor

Although the harsh northern climate leaves its mark on the interior, making it very restrained, it is impossible to make the kitchen homely cozy without cute little things.

You can use black and white paintings and posters as decorations, and during the Christmas season – slightly snow-covered cones, fir branches, candles, stones. From Scandinavian household items, it makes sense to borrow hides, knitted items from thick sheep’s wool, traditional multicolored embroidery ornaments.

Glossy ceramics, figures of northern birds and animals, crystal dishware would look beautiful on open shelves.

Kitchen lighting

In addition to natural sunlight, which should easily enter the room through semi-transparent white curtains, you should also take care of its electric “substitute”.

For a kitchen in a Scandinavian style, economical spot LEDs (which can be built not only into the ceiling but also into the kitchen set), compact spherical bulbs in ordinary black cartridges, and pendant chandeliers in the form of bells, snow globes, cobwebs will work great.

Scandinavian style kitchen design – photos

Our photo gallery will help you find inspiration for a Scandinavian style kitchen design.

It gathers a collection of the best solutions for finishing, furniture placement, appliances, interior decorations. In the photos below, you can see how to decorate a combined, spacious or small kitchen.