Period Cottage
Sussex

About This Project

The Brief

We love designing kitchens in period homes especially beautiful cottage kitchens! The background to this brief was particularly special as this picture-perfect period cottage was set to host a family wedding reception. The kitchen needed to be ready for the wedding, make better use of the space, feel more contemporary but complement the period setting.

Our bespoke kitchen design

Cottage kitchens are by nature fairly bijoux in size, so it is key to take the time to really look at the space and think about how best to utilise it. Working in older properties often throws up features and characteristics you need to take into account. These features could be unlevel floors and walls; in this case, it was very low ceilings. We wanted to ensure that the end design maximised the space. It was important to make the kitchen feel light and airy and show off the gorgeous beamed ceiling.

Without changing the footprint, we reconfigured the space and moved key elements around to create a more natural flow and deliver a more practical kitchen. Our customers really loved the reconfiguration as they had felt limited with the previous set-up, but couldn’t visualise another way of it working. This is always a step we take in our design process, we take time to review whether we can we make the existing footprint work more efficiently.

The final design is a beautiful in-frame, painted shaker kitchen with stylish knurled Crofts & Assinder handles. The cabinets are painted in Little Greene Paint Company’s Juniper Ash, and we have to say, it is a new favourite colour! This blue takes on different hues in a different light and just looks fabulous in this period home. To maintain a light and spacious feel, we used white veined quartz which contrasts beautifully with the painted finish.

All in the detail

With the whole kitchen painted in such a vivid and striking colour, it was important to get it just right and give the customer a real opportunity to visualise how the colour would look in their home. To facilitate this, we had a sample door made up and painted in their colour choice to enable them to make an informed decision. As suspected, the colour looked fantastic and was given the green light!

Another element that needed careful consideration was the lighting. Our customers were keen to have modern downlights installed but the existing ceiling cavity did not have enough space to do this. To combat this, we installed a false ceiling panel in between each beam that could then take the new lighting. We were also asked if we could extend the downlights into the snug area but the ceiling was more tricky to work with and we couldn’t use the false ceiling method here. So, to ensure our customers got the lighting they wanted, we built bespoke mounts for each light in the snug that would then give enough depth for the light fitting to sit in. We are thrilled with the end result, the modern lighting looks fantastic in both areas.

Feeling inspired?

Browse our gallery for some more ideas for cottage kitchens or pop into our showroom to talk to us about your dream kitchen. Drop us a line at info@kitchensbespoke.co.uk or call 01342 313133 to make an appointment.
Photos by jackbeard.com