It’s been a long time coming, but it seems that we’ve finally been granted a peek at Meghan Markle’s real home kitchen, and it embraces a tried-and-true trend that we’ve been monitoring these past few years: the all-wood kitchen. Despite being about all things homemaking, Markle’s Netflix series, With Love, Meghan, is not filmed at the Montecito dwelling she shares with Prince Harry, but at a quaint farmhouse in the same celebrity-beloved enclave. The royals have shared only small glimpses of their true home over the years. But on Tuesday, the Duchess of Sussex posted an Instagram story that appeared to be recorded inside her own home kitchen (and while we at AD cannot definitively confirm, sources at People report that the clip does indeed show the duchess’s SoCal manor), revealing that it is lined with knotty hardwood floors, Old World–inspired wood cabinets, and a dark wooden island topped with what looks to be butcher block countertops.
The cozy, lumber-heavy space affirms an observation that AD’s senior design editor Hannah Martin noted back in 2021.
“The homey, wood-clad kitchen is officially reentering the spotlight,” she wrote, citing, among others, the kitchen of designers Emily Bode and Aaron Aujla, which heavily features coffee-stained Douglas fir; superproducer Ryan Murphy’s white oak-lined kitchen; and that of restaurateur Keith McNally, which emphasizes rustic wooden beams.
Though we’re noticing a marked uptick in all-wood kitchens in the 2020s, one of the best things about the look is that it never truly goes out of style.
With so many different types of wood and finishes, it’s an endlessly customizable material that can be mixed and matched with anything—including, perhaps, more timber.
As seen in the October 2022 issue, sculptor Dan John Anderson’s Yucca Valley home is highly personal. The kitchen backsplash was made from cut-up redwood fence pickets, while the concrete island was poured on one of his children’s due dates. The cabinets are made from fir plywood sourced at a local lumber yard, and the ceramic backsplash was made in collaboration with Joseph Williams.
Photo: Laure Joliet