KITCHEN DESIGN ADVICE
Concept For Living article contribution with Ashley Interiors

When we purchased this house we realised that we had a golden opportunity to explore new ideas in interior design given the fact this was our home, and with the general state of poor repair of the property we would be looking to start from scratch. We recognise that in this day and age there has been a revolution in the way people view their kitchens as being not a functional space but a design feature. As with most homes the kitchen provides a focus for many domestic as well as social activities, and we were determined to invest time and money in designing a pleasant and workable space.

It became apparent very quickly that the kitchen was in a worse state than we originally anticipated the floor and ceiling needs to be replaced, and the walls needing re- plastering. Given the level of building work required we took the opportunity to do further structural work in changing the solid door into French doors and moving them to the end of the room to gain depth, and we increased the size of the window to gain more light.

The main focus of our endeavours was to increase the perception of space, which was achieved partly by the French windows. The idea for this came from our travels in China where we saw some Ming dynasty gardens in the Suzhou the illusion of a living portrait being created with a hole through a wall made deliberately to frame a particular view of the garden. The use of different forms of horizontal lines through the design of the kitchen was also used to enhance the sense of depth to a room. This was apparent with suspension wire lighting, the tiered ceiling, the galley shaped kitchen and the inlayed border running down the floor.

At the end of the day a kitchen has to be a working functional space which is even more important when you have such a splendid cook as Simon who will use the kitchen to its full potential. The focus of any chef will be the quality of the cooking theatre. We used a stainless steel six-burner beaumatic gas range with matching splash back and canopy. On the other side of the kitchen we installed an American side by side fridge freezer. The microwave was situated next to the freezer for convenience. The kitchen cabinets were strategically placed both in terms of size and purpose to maximise storage and minimise the amount of floor walking whilst cooking.

In choosing the materials for the kitchen we had already decided to be disciplined in our approach by only using stainless steel as the metal, beech as the wood and granite as the stone. Our aim was to keep the textures simple and uniform to give the impression of a clean and uncluttered environment.

Good functional and atmospheric lighting is essential to the overall design concept of a room and no more so in the kitchen. Down lights were set into the lower tier of the ceiling, with suspension spot lights being fixed into the upper tier of the ceiling which maximised the back light effect within the recess. Pelmet lights were situated under the cupboards to illuminate the working surfaces, with kick board lights set into the plinths to give low level floor lighting.

As designers and the fact that we move house a lot, gives us the opportunity to explore new concepts in design as often as we like. We feel setting a fixed budget in the kitchens we design for ourselves means that we are bound to think more creatively in our design, and hope to have succeeded with our main objectives. With this project which was completed some years ago and subsequent projects in other homes carried out since then, we have learned that with the growth in the market for innovative kitchens, there are ample opportunities to incorporate new diverse materials into well established traditional kitchen design without going over budget.