The Bearsted Kitchen, Utility, Media, Vanity and More!

The Design

The family had bought their home back in 2016 and had inherited some design choices that weren’t quite their style. Before doing the kitchen, they renovated the entire rest of the house, including sanding down oak beams and renovating a stunning inglenook fireplace, gutting three bathrooms and redecorating every room to be in keeping with the beautiful Georgian architecture. They held off on the kitchen until the rest of the home was perfect. Our client spends most of her time at home in the kitchen so everything was very considered.

“When I do manage to collar the rest of the family to join me for meals, family films and board games, it needed to be a comfortable and beautiful place to gather. We knew we wanted to use Herringbone having seen a friend's kitchen but we still looked at other options to be certain this was the right choice for us.”  

They worked with House by Lucy to bring the whole room together, who did an excellent job at making it all feel cozy and stylish. Every project has a couple of design decisions and compromises due to the space. In this one, when they moved an existing window to make way for French doors, they lost the opportunity to have a sink under a window. The client was hesitant to have the sink on the island and it was probably their biggest compromise, but we countered it with two dishwashers instead, so very little washing up has to be done by hand!

“It's just a lovely place to be, it functions well and looks beautiful. It finally feels like a space that suits us and suits this wonderful Georgian building.”

The bespoke cabinetry was designed with our client and is our traditional Westminster door, handmade in our workshop. This cabinetry runs throughout the project, except in the vanity, where we designed a vanity unit with them, using reeded timber.

Mark was their main kitchen fitter and the client loved his calming nature and attention to detail. When we asked what their favourite part of the kitchen is, there were many elements discussed!

“I love the bench seating. The huge sash window and large rustic dining table lend themselves to the oak benches. They give us extra storage (currently hiding Easter eggs, shh don't tell the kids!) and it's my absolute favourite place to curl up for the first cuppa of the day.  Amazingly the utility room is no bigger than before, but the space works entirely differently now. There's storage for everything, space for washing machine and tumble drier and a fabulous hanging rail which runs wall the wall and allows us to do most of our drying. It's saved us using the tumble drier as much in the winter and is aided by a dehumidifier which has its own little nook. The colour is the most glorious yellow which Herringbone colour matched for us and laundry is a joy these days! “

The Details: Colours, Handles & Bespoke Details

The kitchen and snug cabinetry is painted in Herringbone Paint, Container Green and the oak stained used in the island and vanity is Castle Brown. The handles are Armac Martin the Cotswold cup and handle, which look great together.

The beautiful Rosa Pink marble sits so beautifully behind the Lacanche cooker, and adds a warmth that is difficult to get with man made worktops. The rest of the kitchen is a more practical low silica quartz worktop in Calacatta Gold worktop. When we asked our client any renovation tips along the way, she said

‘Always have more plug sockets than you think you need! And get the lighting right, lighting is often forgotten in projects and Rob at Herringbone and our interior designer Lucy made sure the lighting scheme helped the kitchen sing!”

Family Life

How a space functions in the normal everyday world is so important to us at Herringbone, so we are very happy to hear that it works perfectly for their large family, with three children and two dogs. Rob helped them in designing a space that could both be used to bring the whole family together for board games, movie nights and family meals.

The whole project has turned out so beautifully, and learning that it works well for every member of their family makes us all very proud and happy to have had the opportunity to work on this project. We wish the family a lifetime of happiness in their new beautiful home.