The Cosy Richmond Kitchen

This cosy kitchen is a mix of old and new, an interior where textures, materials, colours and eras are combined to great effect. Our client travels to places rich with culture and there are little mementos of these adventures dotted around: a rug from Damascus, an antique enamel sign from Cairo, a painting from Colombo, layers of cherished objects collected over the years.

The shape of the kitchen is unusual, awkward even, two fairly narrow rooms with doors at either end, a step between, with one side that opens onto the dining room, yet it works so well. 

The big conundrum for this design was the layout, the relationship between the two spaces and the dining room. However, the design process started with a massive advantage as our clients have lived here for 20 years, so knew what they wanted to change about their current kitchen and had established their natural flow in the rooms, how they moved through them, the ergonomics of the space.

Indeed, this is a couple who love to host, so an early decision was to place the hob and oven opposite the dining room, meaning whoever is cooking can be involved in conversation. The Bora hob, with integrated extraction, meant this wall did not need bulky extraction. Instead, two vintage opaline globe wall lights provide the light for cooking. The cabinetry here is velvety Midnight Blue, the navy hue colour matched for the dining room’s walls, a device to visually link the two spaces.

This hob and oven’s location helped determine where the other appliances should go. Here the cupboard colours change to Raspberry, whilst the floor becomes star and cross pattern tiles, inspired by a traditional Moroccan design. This end of the kitchen also has a divine combination of London Plane Pluck cupboards with an antique half-moon console table. 

All worktops in the kitchen are a stunning quartzite, swishes, swirls and eddies of natural stone. The cherry on top of the Pluck cabinetry cake!