A Leytonstone Kitchen

When homeowner Penny embarked upon extending and renovating her Edwardian home in Leytonstone, she had already been designing the kitchen in her head for over a decade. “I wanted a farmhouse style kitchen, something hardy and solid because I've got three teenage boys. I just wanted to create a homely kitchen, somewhere that was just relaxed and comfortable.”

Penny asked the London Kitchen Company to help her create something fairly traditional but simple. After in-depth conversations with the team, she decided on a classic Shaker kitchen in a dark green colour with brass fittings, and marble worktops.

Penny had some specific requests, which the London Kitchen Company team were asked to build the kitchen around. These included a Fisher & Paykel black steel fridge freezer and dish drawers, a wine fridge, a large Shaws Bowland 800 sink and a secondary smaller sink (the team opted for a Shaws Round sink), an instant hot water tap and pullout spray tap, and a telephone charging shelf. Also on Penny’s list of ‘must-haves’ was a large freestanding kitchen island, with lots of seating and storage.

The main Bowland 800 fireclay sink is positioned as far left on the worktop as possible.

Penny wanted to have a long single run of worktop space as possible and didn’t want it interrupted by having a sink in the middle. The other sink is the Shaws Round, one of Shaws’ smallest sinks, making it perfect as a second option. In this case, it was an ideal way to incorporate the instant hot water tap.

The brassware selected for the main sink was a deck-mounted Ionian tap with a separate pullout spray rinse by Perrin & Rowe. The satin brass is a living finish, which develops its own patina over time.

Having hand-built the Solid Ash cabinetry off-site, the team then installed the whole kitchen in its raw state before having it hand-painted once the work was all complete. The colour Penny chose was Farrow & Ball Studio Green, custom blended to have a bespoke sheen. A lot of consideration went into the door handles, and in the end a variety of handles were used – drawer pulls, knobs, appliance pulls, and extra-long pulls for the tall doors.

The Bora Classic Hob was also a big part of the design, freeing up the space around the hob so there is no impediment to the feeling of space as the extraction is integrated and flows downwards rather than up.

The final kitchen is a practical family kitchen with a timeless design and an elegant sense of luxury achieved from the quality of the craftsmanship of the cabinetry, as well as all the beautifully designed and engineered objects that complete the kitchen.