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! “
