Grapes and Wine Styles for Kitchens

Grape and Wine Accessories

• Adding accessories decorated with grapes, such contemporary or vintage pot holders, kitchen towels, storage crocks and decorative bottles, gives a colorful effect with minimal effort. Hanging curtains that match your favorite grape color, such as pale gold for white wine or deep purple for Zinfandel, coordinates with the wine style of your choice. Tie-on cushions in a wine color or with a grape print offer a convenient update for chairs or stools. Displaying wine glasses on open shelves or in a glass front cabinet near a wine rack decorated with grape vines fits in well for this theme.

Decorative Effects

• Hanging a grape sun catcher or a stained glass panel featuring grapes or wine creates shafts of colored light in the kitchen. Stained glass lampshades or a small lamp with grapes on the lampshade gives you a display of glowing grapes in the evening. Using stencils to paint bunches of grapes on kitchen cabinets offers an inexpensive way to create a grape motif and update your kitchen cabinets. Using a lighter shade of gold, green or purple -- depending on the types of grapes you paint -- to paint highlights on the individual grapes gives a three-dimensional effect.

Murals and Wall Art

• A mural on one wall depicting a vineyard, still life with grapes or cafe scene with glasses of wine offers a view and opens up one end of the kitchen. Adding a mural brightens up the kitchen, can help make a small kitchen seem more spacious -- and incorporates the grape and wine motif in an unexpected way. Using light colors for the mural's background also makes the kitchen seem larger. Grouping framed paintings, photographs or posters featuring grapes, wine making or vineyards on one kitchen wall creates a miniature gallery effect to enhance the kitchen's theme.

Tips and Finishing Touches

• The key to using grape or wine accessories lies in moderation. Rotating accessories allows you to change the look of the kitchen and avoid going overboard on accessories. Ready-made or handmade baskets woven out of dried grape vines and filled with bunches of grapes work well to decorate a counter, island or hang from under a counter. Setting out a bottle of wine and wine glasses on the kitchen table or island creates a decorative feature and instant hospitality, enhancing a place for adult guests or members of the household to visit while during meal preparation.