Complete This Beautiful Kitchen

This is the kitchen we would build if someone handed us a white box and a harbor view. The bones are deliberately plain — white shaker cabinetry, honed marble, brass hardware, pale oak floors — because the whole personality of the room comes from what sits on top of it. A white island with a sintered stone top anchors the middle of the floor, and two blue tufted velvet counter stools with nailhead trim pull up to it, which is the single decision that makes the room read blue-and-white instead of white-and-more-white. Then the black-and-white check enamelware begins: canisters in a row on the counter, a tea kettle on the range, a two-slice toaster that is genuinely pretty enough to leave out, a French press, a wall clock, a cookie jar, a saucepan with a wooden handle. On the open shelves, blue and white floral plates stack against sterling check canisters and jeweled glassware. The glasses are where the color turns warm — starfish stemless wine glasses, strawberry cups with bamboo lids, a pink bow tumbler, a gold-and-pink seashell bowl for berries. Nothing in here is hidden in a cabinet. That is the entire method: buy the everyday objects in a pattern you love, and then leave them where you can see them.