The Wandsworth Kitchen

This is the kitchen of Pluck co-founders husband and wife, Lloyd and Leila Touwen, who, unsurprisingly, began the renovation of their Victorian home with a certain amount of clarity on the room’s design! 

The must-have list for two owners of a kitchen design company looked like this; a large ceramic kitchen sink with garden views, a layout that includes a sofa, a range cooker in the original fireplace, a larder, a prep table – for outward facing worktop, cupboard space for bulky appliances, shelves for cookbooks, due to the sofa, banquette seating was not an option, so space for a central dining table, a glazed cupboard for glasses, shelves for display and day-to-day use too. 

Of course the couple are in the unusual position of having spent over a decade thinking about, dreaming of and working in the world of kitchen design BUT we believe that actually everyone can come up with a coherent list for their future kitchen. We are all armed with a wealth of information that will feed into the priorities we have for our own spaces. It is the job of our excellent kitchen designers to tease this out. 

The room’s palette was not fixed upon until they had a lucky find in a reclamation yard and sourced the Victorian floor tiles – as Leila explained when interviewed by Marlborough Tiles in ‘The Art of Consciously Crafted Spaces’.

The combination of wood and colour in the room is typical of Pluck’s characterful designs, with Elm and Terracotta the main materials for the cupboards, along with a dash of Ferndale green and the naturally coloured Douglas Fir veneers from our collaboration with German timber specialists Schotten & Hansen. Meanwhile, the Turnmill Prep Table is London Plane, handcrafted by Pluck’s incredibly talented cabinet makers. Featured in House and Garden’s annual kitchen special, in an exploration of designs that ‘will make your kitchen stand out from the rest’ the magazine highlighted the eclectic look the different types of timber bring. 

The worktops are honed Calacatta Viola marble from Gerald Culliford, whilst all splashback tiles are by Malbrough Tiles. The walls are Bauwerk Colour’s ‘Barley’ by, the ceiling is Dimity and woodwork is Lulworth Blue both by Farrow & Ball. 

This is a kitchen where old and new are effortlessly combined, a canvas for Lloyd and Leila’s collected treasures; a relaxed space where design and craftsmanship from all eras is celebrated, showing how Pluck’s pared back and clutter free style works in combination with antique and modern furniture, art and all those other objects that make a kitchen feel like home.

This is a kitchen where old and new are effortlessly combined, a canvas for Lloyd and Leila’s collected treasures; a relaxed space where design and craftsmanship from all eras is celebrated, showing how Pluck’s pared back and clutter free style works in combination with antique and modern furniture, art and all those other objects that make a kitchen feel like home.