Modern family home
East Grinstead
About This Project
Brief
Our customers wanted help creating an open-plan, sociable kitchen, dining, and living room space. The previous owners had extended the house to create a large living and dining space, but the dated kitchen had remained closed off at the front of the house, and the layout just wasn’t working for the new owners.
They asked us to help them with the layout and to design a kitchen in a shaker style and light colour scheme with an island and breakfast pantry.
Our bespoke kitchen design
We could immediately see that the layout of the downstairs wasn’t working for this family. The kitchen was completely separate from the dining and living spaces, making it impractical to serve food and leaving whoever was working in the kitchen completely isolated from family and friends in the main living spaces.
The best spot in the extension that would comfortably accommodate the new kitchen was against the back internal wall, so we designed a beautiful lay-on shaker kitchen in light grey with veined quartz worktops and stainless steel ‘D’ handles for this corner. Being against the back wall, this area was the darkest corner of the room so we also recommended the customers add a window to the external wall to bring more light in. They were thrilled with our design and suggestion and had the new window installed. The once-dark corner is now flooded with natural light.
This is a proper family room now with distinct zones for the living space, dining area, and kitchen. It is all set up for a new era of entertaining and socialising with a full suite of NEFF appliances, a Falmec Zero induction hob with downdraft extraction, and a Quooker Flex hot water tap in stainless steel.
One of our favourite elements is the quartz worktop. It is Cosy Stone in Denali by Sussex Stone & Ceramic and uniquely features a cool and warm-toned vein that beautifully complements the grey of the kitchen and warmer tones of the floor.
Early on in the design process, we recommended that a kitchen island was not going to be the best use of space with the positioning of doorways and walkways in this extension, especially one with seating which was on the wishlist. Instead, we suggested a large peninsula which would deliver both the sociable breakfast bar area and a larger amount of usable worktop, and not impact the flow of the room. Our customers are thrilled with the layout and this solution, which creates the sociable element they wanted with no compromises on practicality.
All in the detail
The corner wall unit in this kitchen is a bespoke item and much bigger than a normal unit of this type. Usually, a 600 x 600mm unit would be used, but to fit the space and to offer even more practical storage, we designed this corner unit to be 630 x 780mm.
As well as being a breakfast bar and cooking zone, the peninsula in this kitchen also incorporates a bespoke housing unit for a freestanding washing machine. Integrated machines are smaller than freestanding ones, so this solution ensures no compromise on machine size and no compromise on design aesthetic.
Feeling inspired?
If you need help with your home layout and creating your perfect entertaining set-up, email info@kitchensbespoke.co.uk to book your free design consultation. Don’t forget to browse our Projects home page for more inspiration.