Today’s kitchen isn’t about a grand, style-defining focal point, but that doesn’t mean you don’t need a visual landing space to attract the eye when you walk into your space. One of the best design opportunities to capture attention with kitchen features is the range hood area. This is a critical, functional feature within every kitchen design and can be used to transform the space from Modern to Farmhouse or from Traditional to Minimal with an ease of effort.
Current trends support the built in style or a freestanding hood that does not attach to the cabinetry next to it, but wood hoods over a metal appliance tend to blend better into the landscape of the other cabinetry and look more integrated with the kitchen. Minimizing the impact of metal appliances in the space also makes it easier to mix alternative metals that are popular like champagne, gold and matte black.
We recommend dressing up your range hood to mimic other complimentary tones in the cabinetry. This can be matched and stylized or is can be minimal but accented with using a pop of color or a change in species.
Wood Hood Straight Batten 
Wood Hood Square 
Tapered Wood Hood
The associated images show how easy it is to alter the kitchen’s overall style by swapping out only one feature, the hood. Every designer will have their own process, but the range and sink are the first two areas I always start with in my designs and then, the rest of the space just seems to fall into place. Depending on the overall style, I like to use the hood as the primary design feature and really let it be the heart of the kitchen. I may even pull out design aesthetics from the hood and add them into the details of an island or a feature sink cabinet. The flexibility of hood configurations also work great for minimal designs, when the style is more modern, I may instead blend the hood into the rest of the cabinetry in the space, as if it doesn’t even exist. You can’t go wrong when you make sure the range hood looks and feels like the finishing touch.
Below are a few of my favorite ways to style a range hood.
