Beginners Guide To Creating An Unfitted Kitchen

Love the look of old world style unfitted kitchens but unsure where to start? Last year we did a full kitchen remodel on our 112 year old American Foursquare home designing it to be an unfitted kitchen! In this post, I’ll walk you through how we did it, and how you can do it too! This is a Beginners Guide To Creating An Unfitted Kitchen.

pinterest photo for How To Make An Unfitted Kitchen

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What Is An Unfitted Kitchen?

An “unfitted kitchen” is a kitchen designed without the continuous built-in cabinetry and fixed layouts common in current day homes. Instead, it uses a mix of freestanding furniture pieces—such as dressers, hutches, worktables, open shelving, and standalone cupboards—to create a more flexible, homey look. This style often feels warmer and more lived-in because the room evolves over time, with individual pieces that are custom picked with character, function, or history in mind.

picture of a kitchen styled like an unfitted kitchen with 2 hutches, a stainless steel fridge to the right and a table in the center.

How It Started

In July 2025 we bought our first home a 112 year old American Foursquare farmhouse. We mostly bought the home for the location, finding a little property by my in-laws was a rare opportunity. But the home needed work (this is an understatement). We completely gutted most of the rooms over the next 8 months the kitchen being the most daunting for me from a design standpoint. I’ll show you some pictures of what we started with.

empty dirty kitchen with wood ceiling, blue walls, white trim and wall panels, and a dark wood floor.

empty dirty kitchen with wood ceiling, blue walls, white trim and wall panels, and a dark wood floor. counter with dishwasher and kitchen sink.

empty dirty kitchen with wood ceiling, blue walls, white trim and wall panels, and a dark wood floor. , stairs with carpet ripped out

this is A Glimpse At Some Of The Process:

room that has studs showing, no floors or ceiling. ladder and shop vac in the middle of the room

room that has studs showing, no floors or ceiling. ladder and shop vac in the middle of the room , blue paint samples on the wall.

room that has studs showing, no floors or ceiling. ladder and shop vac in the middle of the room , wall taken out to expose window

This Is Our Kitchen Now:

clean kitchen with a wood table in the center, a stacked whicker basket shelf and dark hutch at the back

dark wood kitchen hutch with coffee mugs and makers, stainless steel fridge to the right of the hutch. white walls, light flooring

kitchen with white walls, dark bookshelf with microwave, toaster, glass storage, wood table in the center of the room, white stove, white kitchen cart with drawers.

Would you like to see a video tour of our kitchen? watch here!

Choosing The Design

As you can see, this kitchen needed a complete overhaul. Aside from no lighting only a few fake windows.. (I have no idea what the previous owners were thinking with those) We also needed new plumbing, duct work, electric, yep the whole shebang. So I had multiple months to think over my design for a new layout. Here was my thought process behind why we did an unfitted kitchen, and why you may want to as well.

Time

We wanted to be able to move in as soon as we could. We knew it would take awhile to get the built-in cabinetry we eventually want. So I decided to start searching for highly functional but pretty pieces like wardrobes and hutches that could store a good amount of dishes and kitchen/pantry supplies. I searched exclusively on Facebook Marketplace to source the pieces for my kitchen. I stored the pieces in our new garage and we moved them all into the kitchen in less than an hour once the new flooring was put in. An unfitted kitchen is very quick to put together if you’re vigilant at looking for the right pieces.

Cost

You always hear the most expensive rooms to remodel are the kitchen and bathroom.. Boy is this true! Once I started looking at the pricing for custom cabinetry I got sticker shock! We spent less than $1,000 on our entire kitchen layout (minus floors, walls, and anything in the walls) by sourcing individual pieces. This includes our appliances! An unfitted kitchen is very affordable. Which was amazing for our budget considering how much we had to put into other places in the home.

Flexibility:

I make most of our meals from scratch. As well as baking for our farm stand, canning, and making soap and other cosmetics. I use our kitchen a lot. Since I had never lived in our new home, I wasn’t certain what layout would suit us best. An unfitted kitchen allows for flexibility with kitchen layout. I have been able to move pieces around and experiment with what works for us which has helped with the vision for our future dream kitchen.

Style:

An unfitted kitchen is homey, warm, and unique. This very much suits my design style and was an added bonus to us deciding to go with this type of kitchen.

How I started Designing Our Kitchen:

I settled on my main piece being an Ethan Allen Old Tavern Pine collection hutch. I knew this piece would be big enough for our everyday dishes up top, and bigger storage down below. The multiple small drawers I knew could be used for silverware, cooking utensils, and more. I got the hutch off of Facebook Marketplace for $200.

From a design standpoint, I was drawn to the dark wood, the exposed hinges, glass panes, and contrast porcelain drawer knobs.

Once filled with our everyday dishes, I styled further with my basket collection up top as a place to store them but also add a cottage style charm to the space. Most of these baskets were found at garage sales.

This piece was the first choice for our unfitted kitchen. It was the biggest and most expensive piece that also set the tone for how I wanted our unfitted kitchen to look and feel.

Ethan Allen Old Tavern Pine collection hutch with dark wood, the exposed hinges, glass panes, and contrast porcelain drawer knobs.

Designing Your Own Unfitted Kitchen Checklist:

Now that you’ve gotten an idea of how I went about designing our kitchen, I’ll break down the process in an easy list for you!

Measure the space
Prep the space for furniture (paint, flooring, etc)
Identify the needs (how much storage, what appliances you need)
Make a list of items needed example: 1 hutch, 1 island, 1 sink stand
Plan rough layout of the space so you know what dimensions furniture must be
Identify what style you’re wanting the kitchen to be (creating a vision board or Pinterest board helps!)
Start searching secondhand for pieces to fit the space by size, functionality, and style
Move pieces into the space and arrange as planned
Live in the space and work with it moving pieces and reorganizing as necessary
Continue sourcing furniture pieces and decor as needed and adding pieces as you go!

Where Do You Source Items For Your Kitchen?

I bought all of my major pieces of furniture from Facebook Marketplace. But this doesn’t mean you have to! There are many options for sourcing furniture:

Garage sales

Thrift stores – I got our island lights for $10 from a Habitat Restore!

The dump – yes you can sometimes buy furniture from a dump! Check with your local dump to see if they sell furniture.

Ask friends – you can ask your friends on Facebook if they have an old hutch or other furniture they may not want, you never know who may have un-used furniture around!

Estate Sales

Don’t Forget To Have Fun

An unfitted kitchen can be an ever evolving project, let’s make it fun! As you experiment with different layouts and evaluate functionality you can rearrange, sell, buy, and try different furniture as you please!