New Barnet Kitchen

The Backstory

We recently completed this beautiful bespoke kitchen for a family in New Barnet. The clients bought a run-down property that been empty for a couple of years and completely renovated it from top to bottom - reconfiguring the layout as well as redecorating throughout! This took them about a year to complete.

They had been searching for a long time before they found this house. The family were quite particular about their search, wanting to be close to family and schools, and we willing to wait for the right house.

“The market at that point was not particularly buoyant, so we ended up with a renovation project despite not really wanting one and having zero experience. We were renovation virgins!

We bought the house a few months after our second child was born, and moved in just two months before number 3 was born, so it was definitely a labour of love!”

The kitchen was small with no room for a table and without much surface space for prep due to the placements of the sink and cooker.

“Even through the chaos, it was a nice bright room looking into the garden which gets a lot of sun - the window was big and we knew we wanted to keep the kitchen roughly in the same place to view into the garden.”

The Design

The design of this kitchen is rather cool! With a mixture of cabinetry in our Westminster range for the main run and larder, a traditional shaker style door and the Applegate range on the island, with flat drawers and cut-out handles. In terms of what the clients wanted to change, they needed it to be a lot bigger. They’d always known the kitchen as the heart of the home so they needed enough space for it to be a more sociable space, as well as plenty of worktop area.

“We were really keen to support a small UK business when it came to the kitchen. It’s the room that was most important to us, and having come from a much smaller home where we had no real options for changing the layout of the kitchen, it was essential that we made the best use of the space.

The thing I found really useful was talking to friends and family and what they loved and hated about their own kitchens. Relatives who had redone kitchens fairly recently gave us invaluable advice.”

“I am really pleased that we mixed things up and used the Applegate range for our island drawers; it looks great and it’s really practical not to have handles sticking out when using the island for food prep.”

The Details: Colours, Hardware & More

For their main run of cabinetry, our lovely clients chose “Holland Park” by Mylands, a rosey off white colour. For their island and larder unit, they chose “Blueprint”, again by Mylands. ‘Blueprint’ is a much brighter, royal blue colour compared to the famous ‘Bond Street’ blue we see a lot of!

“This [picking colours and hardware] was the most difficult and longest part of the decision-making! We had at least 20 tins of sample paint in a variety of colours pinned up when the house was still a building site.”

The couple naturally gravitated towards light colours, but loved the bold look they had seen lots of people choose with dark blues and greens. In the end, they went for a compromise with lighter units for the main run and a dark, but bright, blue on the island and larder cupboard.

For their cabinetry handles, the couple chose these gorgeous bar pulls in a burnished brass finish. These handles feature a beautiful knurled edge on either end, giving the kitchen some texture and a bit of an industrial element. Brass plated plug sockets, hinges and pendant lights tie the look together.

The reeded glass doors on the wall units open up the space, add a touch of retro glamour and nicely compliment the hatch-like window in the polished quartz splashback from silestone in the colour ‘Lagoon’.

“We really went up to the last minute when choosing [colours & handles] and we even had a panic that we had chosen the wrong handles - poor Luke was very patient with us! But we are really delighted with the result and have had lots of compliments.”

Making Your Dream Kitchen In The Workshop

If you would like to come see your project being made, you can ask your designer to arrange a workshop visit, only a ten minute drive from our Canterbury studio!

The Herringbone Workshop

The Bi-Fold Countertop Larder Unit

To the right of the kitchen island sits a tall double larder unit. Rather than our traditional double door larder unit, our clients went for a countertop unit with bi-fold doors. This is an excellent solution to needing the doors kept open without them getting in the way of you cooking and moving around the kitchen. Three beautiful oak shelves sit inside as well as a lightly veined Quartz cold shelf that extends out of the doors.

“We absolutely love our larder with the bi-folding doors. It fits so much and looks really impressive. We’ve had so many compliments about it too!”

On Using Herringbone

“We had our hearts set on a Herringbone kitchen from the beginning and we love the end result. We loved our visit to Canterbury. Luke was very patient and was able to give us the benefit of his experience when it came to navigating the myriad of choices.

The team were very accommodating about changes to the schedule due to Covid lockdown challenges, and our fitter Joe went above and beyond to get the kitchen finished on time.”

-Emma & Chris - New Barnet