Sarah’s cramped kitchen wasn’t working efficiently from the moment she moved in with her partner, Alex, along with two daughters, Hazel and Ailsa. It was important to tackle the room straight away because the layout wasn’t practical, and the cupboards were bulging because there wasn’t enough storage.
‘There was an awkward door to get into the kitchen that obstructed the fridge-freezer. The room was quite compact without much space to move around, and we were always bumping into each other as we were coming in and out of the room. There just wasn’t enough cupboard space either and we thought about how to make the kitchen a bit larger without extending the house.’
Insider info...
The homeowner Sarah Purchase, 39, co-owner of Borrowed Light Floral Studio, a florist and plant shop (borrowedlightflorals.com and @borrowedlightflorals), who lives with daughters, Hazel and Ailsa, and partner, Alex.
The house A four-bedroom Victorian house in South Woodford, East London.
The problem The kitchen was awkward, dark, and lacked storage – but we didn’t have the option to extend.
The solution By opening up the entrance, and adding a glass door looking out onto the garden, the room feels so much bigger.
Sarah’s partner, Alex, a builder, suggested taking the door frame out to open up the kitchen to the dining room and putting a glass door at the other end to flood the room with natural light. The couple called on Any Kitchen, a local company, to come up with a new plan for the cupboards. Now that the room was much more open onto the dining area, Sarah decided to extend the kitchen units along the wall to maximise the cupboard space.
Sarah went for a grey and white colour scheme to give it a sleek, modern look. She was immediately drawn to dark grey, matt units, picking out a white marble-effect laminate worktop with a matching upstand for contrast.
Sarah wanted to keep the walls quite neutral, so opted to freshen things up with white paint and then added bright prints to inject colour and pattern into the scheme.
The floor was treated to some smart, luxury vinyl tiles from Harvey Maria to add further pattern and interest. ‘I’ve added loads of plants from our shop to make the room feel really homely, too. It’s like having a completely different kitchen and I love it now,’ smiles Sarah.
Photos Lizzie Orme.