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I’ll declare my bias right up front — I am not a fan of pine. In my world the words “country” and “kitchen” don’t belong in the same sentence, never mind in the same room. So you can imagine my surprise when I found myself being swept away by the possibilities of designing a kitchen around the rustic, pine cupboard below.

With three sliding glass doors, the cabinet ($2,750) is a little over nine feet long and perfect counter height. It could also make an amazing island if your kitchen was big enough. Like everything in the Rowntree Antiques showroom, the piece is old, likely late 1800s. It feels weathered and warm, the antithesis of today’s cold, modern kitchens. Granite and stainless, granite and stainless . . . wake me when something interesting happens.

While touring Rowntree (780 Rue Atwater, Montreal), one of Canada’s biggest sellers of antique pine furnishings, it occurred to me that you could probably buy all the requisite pieces for not much more than a custom cabinet install. And then instead of having the same kitchen as everybody else in your neighbourhood, you’d have something unique and antique that would be worth even more when you were finished with it instead of being headed for a landfill site, which is where most of today’s kitchens will be in 15 or 20 years.

I know I’m barking up a lonely tree on this one and faced with a kitchen reno of my own, I don’t know if I’d actually be able to pull the trigger on such a radical departure from my own taste. The appliances, sink and flooring could inject the 21st century but wouldn’t it be nice to feel connected to the past as well while you chopped carrots or shelled peas? Leave it to Montreal to bring out the romantic in me.