Good Bones: Copy Mina's Design For A Minimalist Modern Farmhouse Kitchen

Mina Starsiak Hawk is known for her impeccable but very livable style on the HGTV series "Good Bones." The team regularly takes older homes and modernizes them while still retaining and remaining true to the home's original bones and features. The Season 5, Episode 3 transformation on the series involved opening up the kitchen of a home to create a stylish open-concept living/dining/cooking space. With a beautifully neutral and classic base for the cabinets, counters, and backsplash, the kitchen is taken to the next level with rustic and personalized details to create a dreamy modern farmhouse style aesthetic the homeowners end up adoring.

Even better, these elements are very easy to replicate if you want a similar look in your home. By mixing new and old, neutral and personal, you too can create a rustic kitchen with a distinctly contemporary feel that feels fresh and minimal, but still has a lot of personality and a sense of history. 

Mina Starsiak Hawk begins with a rather neutral and contemporarily chic backdrop for her rustic kitchen design, including classic white shaker-style cabinets, which fit a number of design schemes from vintage to contemporary. The cabinets extend all the way to the top of the room with crown molding, which makes the space feel very modern while still sporting attention to gorgeous woodwork that is often associated with older homes. The effect is bright and open, which is magnified by removing walls in the kitchen to create a bright, open-concept space. Other chosen contemporary elements, like quartz counters and white subway tile, feel ageless and add to the brightness.

While an all-white kitchen can always be in danger of becoming too sterile, beautiful copper hardware on pulls and handles warms up the space considerably, as does chic black plumbing hardware often found in contemporary homes. Warm woods, like a dough bowl and corbels harvested and refinished for the home's exterior for shelf brackets, also warm up the space on a wall under the stairs. The light fixtures, wire industrial pieces painted a weathered white and lit with antique-style bulbs, further add a sense of history to the space.

Focusing on how to blend contemporary and vintage or rustic elements is the key to the stunning success of this particular "Good Bones" remodel. The shaker cabinets feel both classic and contemporary, meaning they are adaptable with future style changes and very attractive to potential new buyers. They serve as versatile anchors for the vintage touches. The warmth of copper, which can be implemented with cabinet hardware, can also be captured by hanging copper pots or mugs from hooks on the wall or under the cabinets. Beautiful copper sinks have also become more popular in recent years. 

Touches of warm and weathered wood are easily achieved by implementing elements like cutting boards and large wooden bowls in your decor. For lighting, opt for fixtures that err on the industrial and rustic side in materials like distressed white paint, antiqued silver, brass, or matte black. Other great ideas for a rustic kitchen space include plants, woven materials, handmade pottery, and open shelving lined with jars and canisters.

The personal and unique touches can be the most impactful, so find ways to pay homage to the style of your home and personality by bringing in vintage pieces with a sense of history. Great options include details like weathered architectural salvage pieces like window frames, old clocks, ceiling medallions, and antique signage. If you're doing a remodel, find ways to use elements harvested from elsewhere like decorative fireplace tiles or stained-glass panels. You can also build islands, shelves, or tables wholly or partially from salvaged wood.