Clients from Rowlands Castle, Nr. Petersfield, Hampshire wanted us to create a large family kitchen with a Provencal feel, using a very specialist paintwork.
Quite a few walls had to be knocked out of the original kitchen in order to create enough space for the new one. The old terracotta tiles were kept and the floor patched up where the existing walls had been. A Britannia Range with an electric hob was set into a faux chimney, complete with integral lighting. Note this is the only tiled area of the kitchen; the rest of the kitchen was fashioned with stone upstands, to match the stone worktops.
The Centre Island incorporated a circular prep sink, with vegetable waste disposal unit (some clients however, favour a stainless steel composting drawer instead). The end grain chopping block at the end of the island was made from maple wood.
To unite the new, bespoke kitchen all the way through, we shaped attractive and distinctive raised and fielded arches on the top panels of the dresser doors in the main kitchen area, and the larder cupboard in the food storage area. This cabinetry was painted using a specialist crackle glaze distressed paint technique.
The clients opted for a large, free standing American style fridge freezer, a very popular and practical solution for a large family kitchen.
The white, melamine faced MDF cabinet interiors were specifically chosen by our clients for their practical and hard wearing qualities. Dirt is easily seen, which some clients like, as the cabinets are then easy to keep clean.
This kitchen incorporates a curved door cabinet. This technique is extremely labour intensive as the wood has to be formed over a mould which is made to shape and curve the doors (This process will no doubt be subject of a blog post in the future). Attractive, simple handles were made from wrought steel, which were then painted black. These echoed the mat black, Nero Impala worktops, otherwise technically known as honed, granite. We had the windows manufactured to a certain height so that we could run the worktops right into them. This generates a feeling of space and offers practical solutions to what would otherwise leave awkwardly situated and sometimes unsightly windowsills.
