Sunshine Yellow Kitchen

This colourful kitchen was designed for a couple that have been inspired by the flamboyant interiors in the seaside town of Margate. The town is home to a large community of creatives and as such has an array of properties with eccentric interiors in which you can stay. The clients property in Tunbridge Wells is a mid 1980's built house on a cul de sac. We wanted to design something that felt in keeping with the property but was also modern and practical.

One of the reasons I suggested plywood is that with a laminated front it is very hard to scratch and the couple have 2 excitable bouncy dogs and any paint finish would likely get scratched quite quickly. The Sol Formica laminate fronts are much more hard wearing. We combined this with oak as it is a material that features throughout the house and paired it with a beautiful reclaimed oak parquet floor.

Once we had the layout designed we couldn't quite decide on the worktop. We looked at many different options from quartz to marble and onyx however I couldn't get the couple to both agree on any of my initial suggestions. Then I thought more about the era and the emerging design styles of the 1980s. Ettore Sottsass was a big inspiration to me when I was at university. He founded a collective of designers called 'Memphis' who were known for their use of bold colours, new materials and pattern. Terrazzo was one of these. It is a composite material made up of marble, granite or quartz chips embedded in a cement like resin. I mocked it up on a 3d render and thought it looked fantastic and the clients both agreed! We ordered some samples from Diespeker and settled on the TE081 resin, a tutti frutti style with multiple tones in it that pick up on the colours of the furniture.

The layout is a typical L shape with a prep island and a storage zone encapsulating a pantry flanked by a full size fridge and full size freezer. In terms of details the handle is a simple routered pill shape. I wanted to keep the wall units clean though so designed an overhanging door in front of some extra thick plywood. This means each wall unit is easily opened from underneath without the need for a handle or to press on the door front as you would with 'tip on' opening mechanisms.

This has turned a room that was a dark and unwelcoming space into somewhere the whole family wants to be. It is a lovely thing to be able to help make that sort of difference in peoples lives.