This beautiful kitchen was finished not so long ago, and at least once a day I think about what we did here for various reasons. I will try to put my experiences as a designer and project manager in a small blog post, and hope it will give all my readers a bit of insight in renovating your kitchen area.

Two very lovely ladies came in my shop in a weekday, can’t quite remember the exact day, with a space drawing, asking for a traditional shaker painted kitchen. They were ready to exchange a wooden door for an MDF one, as our doors are made to look extremely close to the real thing. Once we decided on an approximate layout, I crunched the numbers and because of manufacturer discounts on the wooden shaker door, it was just a few hundred pounds more than the MDF one, therefore the sensible thing to do was to go all wood. The technical drawings as follows:

The total budget for the kitchen, plus installation was £13k. This amount bought Jan and Gaynor a wooden shaker door, prime oak worktops, installation, plumbing and a dishwasher; most importantly they got a 5 star design from me, with their fantastic input of course.

We had to take into account that on the opposite side of the washing machine, there is a bare brick wall which had light added to it to make it into a showpiece, therefore we had to add subtle construction like pieces along the way to go with the theme of the kitchen. The oak shelves you will see on either side of the range cooker are supported by very industrial looking supports, but I assure you they look magnificent when getting the vibe of the room. I sadly forgot to take a proper picture of the wall.

There was quite a lot of bespoke furniture this kitchen, as it came ready to assemble, and our extremely talented carpenter was able to make it fit into some awkward areas. There is a pilaster seen in the pictures, which basically had the wall unit reduced from the back on one side, but had the inside of the cupboard used as a box around the pilaster, thus keeping a very neat look.

I did quite a few traditonal kitchens in my time as a designer, and am proud of all of them. I cannot get enough of a traditional look, it is like living in a historical present…

If you ask what is the bicycle doing on the wall, well, who knows me will be aware of my past in Denmark, where I spent almost 6 years of my life as a University student. The bicycle culture in Denmark is something every other European culture should be envious of, so I thought put it on the wall. (it was actually my customers idea, but the Denmark part seemed like a more romantic approach)