Location: Oxshott, Surrey, UK

Kitchen Design: Ligneous Kitchens

Photography: Colin Morrell

Ligneous Kitchens were tasked with creating a contemporary kitchen for a professional couple with children, who are keen chefs and entertainers for their recently purchased house. The clients wanted to create a beautiful contemporary kitchen that, as a hub for their family life, flowed from kitchen functionality to grown-up entertaining, civilised dining and a place to bring the family together. Practical, elegant, uncluttered and highly functional, with a wow factor.

Clever use of space was key as they were concerned about making sure that the lovely clean lines of their minimalist kitchen remained undisturbed by visual clutter. They wanted to make sure the eye was drawn to the accents of rich colour and texture, giving the aesthetic depth and soul. The brief called for a handle-less design and Ligneous Kitchens advised that intelligent lighting design, position and colour temperature would bring the surface textures to life. The designers also advised that this is an often overlooked and massively underestimated part of advanced kitchen design and the final aesthetic and therefore worth careful and considered judgment.

Choices of appliances in this brief were partially to make sure they worked with the design motif, but functionality and build quality were required in the conversation, from the off, as the ability to complete demanding cooking tasks and stand the test of time were front-and-centre for this family of keen chefs. They wanted to make sure that the design aesthetic had guests in mind as well as the occupants, as entertaining both contemporary minded friends, as well as more staid relatives, was something this kitchen needed to take in its stride. The worktop needed to be carefully chosen for understated elegance, a high degree of practicality to stand family use and achieving that wow factor!

All the furniture and colours in the rest of the kitchen and house have taken their colours from the kitchen, the kitchen remains the seed from which the entire overall design for the refurbishment has grown.