Country cottage
Ashurst Wood

About This Project

Brief

This is a lovely cottage in the beautiful Ashurst Wood, and, as is often the case with period cottages, the kitchen was separate from the dining area. Cottage kitchens can be one of the darker rooms in the house, making the space at odds with our modern ideals of open-plan living and optimising natural light.

Our customers wanted to modernise their kitchen, which was previously a dark pine and to make it much larger in order to create an open-plan space. They wanted something light and bright, but in keeping with the rural and characterful nature of the cottage. They also wanted to keep their range cooker, the Rayburn and the chimney.

Our bespoke kitchen design

To kick off their plans for a new kitchen, our customer had reached out to an architect to explore how they could create an open-plan space. The plans they’d been given involved taking out the external wall and connecting the cottage to an outbuilding via a new extension. This would create a stunning open-plan space, but the cost of the building works would have been substantial.

We suggested instead to remove the internal wall between the kitchen and dining room to create the open-plan space they were after, and save on building works. This was the perfect solution, and the customers went with our recommendation.

To create the perfect country cottage kitchen, an in-frame shaker kitchen with beautiful oak drawer boxes from our Caledonian range was the ideal choice. The colour is ‘Chalk Cliffs’ which works so well with the brass cuphandles and knobs, and KonigCeramic Calacutta Classico worktops. This kitchen perfectly balances traditional style and modern living.

The in-frame style looks right at home teamed with the Rayburn and the pale worktops, with veining adding a modern touch. The colour scheme keeps the space feeling light and bright and right on brief.

Getting the worktop right was key because our clients are avid cooks, and it was paramount to them to have a really robust worktop that wouldn’t stain easily. KonigCeramic was chosen for this reason. It is crafted using carefully sourced natural minerals that are compacted to a high density and fired to a temperature of over 1200°C. Created in this way, not only does the material become scratch and heat resistant, but it is also virtually non-porous, making it highly stain resistant.

This cottage benefits from having a separate walk-in pantry, but to cater for such keen cooks, we also designed a pantry cupboard next to the Rayburn for all the day-to-day spices and items they want right at hand.

Understanding how customers want to use their space is important. In addition to the cooking zones being a key component of the design, we also learned that they wanted to be able to work from the island, so we integrated two back flip sockets. Out of sight when not in use, right where you need them when the laptops need plugging in.

The dining room had previously a standalone set of drawers for storage, but it wasn’t in keeping with the new kitchen, so we designed a new set of drawers in the same style as the kitchen but with an oak top. We incorporated four drawers to maximise the storage capacity, and it slots in perfectly, looking as though it has always been there.

All in the detail

As part of our recommendation to remove the wall between the kitchen and dining room, we project-managed the building works, arranging for the structural engineer and working with local building firm Tiver Construction to deliver the project.

The flooring in the kitchen and dining room is original, and when the wall was removed between the two rooms, it was very apparent that the flooring had been laid in different directions and needed some TLC. We arranged for a specialist flooring company (Sussex Floor Restoration) to sand back and revarnish all the original flooring, repair the floor where the wall had come out and create a new join between the two sides.

Feeling inspired?

If you’re ready for a kitchen transformation, email us at info@kitchensbespoke.co.uk to book your design consultation. Don’t forget to browse our Projects home page for more inspiration.