Kitchen!

5 of the best things so far...

It is boiling. Here are five things I love about my new kitchen which is not yet finished but well underway.

Here is the kitchen right now, on Sunday May 24, just shy of five weeks since we began demolishing the old kitchen, but with months of planning before that.

So much went into all of that, including the slow and rather agonising realisation that there were certain things I wanted (unfitted, aga-centred, farmhouse dream etc) that were just not going to work in my small, awkward London space.

Also that I don’t hate islands, I just hate gigantic ones.

Also that my favourite colours might not necessarily work in this space.

And also that sometimes a solid square edge is really okay!

I am going to write another time about the reasons behind the choices we’ve made, but for now….

Five favourite things about the new kitchen (so far)!

Craftsmanship: Beautiful joints made by skilled humans. These drawers have perfect dovetail joints, and they make me very happy indeed. We also have a run of cupboards with reeded glass inserts, held by walnut frames and these have been made using mortise and tenon joints, all of which are at eye level and very, very beautiful.

Scale: Our giant kitchen island has been removed and replaced with one that is the perfect size for our small-ish kitchen. The previous giant island was an instant regret (for me, not him) when we made our original kitchen, and, along with adding some blinds to our glass roof, it was my only real complaint with the old space. Movement was stilted…things felt awkward. Nobody knew where to sit, stand or be. Removing it felt exquisitely freeing. The new, smaller island is the right size. Seating has been moved to one end, and you can easily lean over it to pass things to people. Heaven. This one thing alone has taught me that making a mistake and living with it for a while makes the solution fifty times more rewarding.

Colour: I’ve written about how the nuances of colour are slightly mysterious to me, and until the colours of the kitchen were unveiled and I saw everything together, I was still confused….until it all made sense. These colours are happy ones, but they’re also calm and a bit grown-up. Our initial request was for the colour scheme to echo what we were comfortable with, and our truly brilliant designers have found a way to take those preferences and tweak them into something a little less shouty and a bit more grounded, against which we can add the inevitable stuff of real family life. Walls and ceiling are yet to get their paint, which is essential to bring everything together. And of course there are still worktops and tiles, furniture, textiles, lighting and art to go in.

Details: I wish you could put your hands through your screens and pull these knobs open…they fit perfectly between the fingers, and they are cool on the skin. And look at this beading detail around the drawers; it’s called ‘cock-beading’ (because ‘raised, decorative detail’) and Denis says that the profile looks a little like a cockerel’s comb. Anyway, it’s beautiful and it looks considered and composed and competent. What I find so clever is that our designers haven’t used it everywhere, in the same way that they haven’t used the shaker or panelled detail everywhere, making the whole effect less ‘done’ and me very happy.

Excellent wonderful people: Kind, clever, talented people who care about producing amazing work (and don’t mind the cats). What a team; we are so incredibly lucky to have them.

Enough. I hope this isn’t boring. It is obviously occupying every single one of my brain cells. The garden is more of a sanctuary than ever, especially in the heat, so next week there will be a post on that.

x Laetitia