The Kitchen at No. 1

Process and Reflections

I wanted a kitchen that was simple, elegant, and raw. The kitchen was heavily inspired by the simplicity and minimalism of Scandinavian design with clean lines and raw materials such as birch ply.

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With high street kitchens being too generic and bespoke kitchens out of budget, I opted for a hybrid approach with off-the-shelf flat pack kitchen cabinets from IKEA and bespoke doors and panels from Devon based company: Made in Ply. This allowed for the design I wanted while also taking advantage of the flexible storage solutions from IKEA. Overall, this created a very cost-effective kitchen with the desired aesthetic.

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From a practical aspect, the kitchen had to be accessible and compact. Clever storage solutions, such as drawers within drawers and high deep cupboards for storage of lesser used items, allowed more to fit into an already tight space. A larder cupboard allows ample storage for food, as well as extra counter space and a socket so appliances can be hidden away but still useable.

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Accessibility was always at the heart of this kitchen. With the layout, ample space was needed around the island to allow for a wheelchair. The use of drawers instead of cupboards gave easy to see and accessible storage and low down appliances meant they were accessible from a wheelchair. For the handle design, while I liked the look of circular holes, I knew that these would be unusable for my son's weak hands and reduced fine motor skills. Instead we went for small handle pulls.

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Throughout the project there were unforeseen changes such as replacing the subfloor and a reduction in ceiling height meaning that the kitchen would not fit! To overcome this, the deep top cabinets were adapted to reduce the height.

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Overall I am very pleased with the kitchen and it works well with our family's needs. If I had the chance again, I would introduce more raw materials such as concrete worktops and more birch ply as I feel this works really well and is surprisingly durable.