We recently finished an amazing kitchen/dining room project. Despite having to deal with lockdowns, supply delays and shortages, it was a fantastic project to work on. It helped that our clients are two of the loveliest people, and we had a great team helping us create our vision.

Our clients have a beautiful architecturally designed home and the kitchen was still in pretty great condition, even after 17 years. But they were ready for a re-fresh and more storage was on the wishlist.

The original kitchen was a U-shape tucked into one end of the room with the dining table taking up a large part of the open-plan space. They have a magnificent view over Napier on the opposite side of the room and the first thing we wanted to do was to capitalise on that by spinning the kitchen around to face the view, also giving our clients a more spacious kitchen to work in.

Because we were proposing quite a radical change to the layout, it was helpful to show our clients 3D renders so they could clearly see our vision, and there was no guesswork involved. It’s also a very important part of our process as it’s a lot easier (and cheaper) to make changes to the renders rather than making physical changes once construction has started. You can see more of our renders here.

Because the kitchen was the first space you see as you enter this open plan living area we wanted the joinery to feel like built-in furniture. When the teak veneer that we wanted to use wasn’t available our joiner, Kakapo Joinery, took an oak veneer and created a series of test pieces with different stains to create the richness we were after for the back lineup. The island has a black stain and we fluted this to add subtle texture.

Because there are a lot of architectural details in the home we wanted to keep aspects of the design clean and simple so we opted for handleless, push-to-open drawers and cupboards. The large pantry required handles, though, as it has pocket doors that can be opened and pushed right in so as not to interrupt flow in the kitchen. So we asked Kakapo Joinery to create gorgeous handles from solid oak that ran the entire height of the pantry for an inconspicuous solution.

In the original design the dining room took up a lot more floor space. Our kitchen design ate into that floor space quite considerable and so required a clever solution.

The hutch dresser could go as the large new pantry and multitude of wide, deep drawers provided ample storage. We then gained valuable space by designing a dining banquette along the back two walls, flowing seamlessly onto the kitchen cabinetry. A new, custom made table could then tuck right up against the banquette.

As we progressed with the dining area we asked Robin from Kakapo Joinery to make a dummy table top to try in-situ on the base so we could get the size and scale just right. Again, it’s more cost effective to make a change to the ply ‘dummy’ top than the real oak top.

Dael (below) is trying it out for size. Note: she is sitting on a cushion to make sure she’s getting a more accurate feel for the finished design. How many cafes have you been to where the bench seating feels too high for the table? That’s because it seems to be a common mistake to make the bench the full height not taking into account the cushion or squab. We use a 100mm thick foam in our squabs, so we need to make the base of our banquettes 100mm shorter.

One of the architectural details of the home was a shelf that ran along the back of the room. When it came to our banquette design we were able to run the back support directly under this so that the shelf could still be used. The upholstery was made by the amazing team of Martin & Ivan and is a gorgeous faux leather.

Another of the home’s architectural features was a lot of angles with different levels and depths. We wanted to simplify this slightly and so the back cabinetry hides a lot of that with a bulkhead above.

We didn’t want to completely loose the subtle angle of the back wall, but we were also trying to avoid any further sharp angles. So Kakapo Joinery created a really beautiful subtle curve in the lower cabinetry, which you can see in the progress image below. In fact all of the curves in our design were introduced to contrast and soften the various angles in the architecture.

We chose to use Corian® as the benchtop material for a number of reasons. We loved the gorgeous organic swirling pattern in caramel and cream tones. It’s a great product to use on curves, and it offers nearly seamless joins.

With the focus on the kitchen being the back lineup in the warm teak-stained oak, we wanted the overhead cupboards (which include a hidden powerpack) to sit quietly. By painting them the same white as the walls they don’t demand too much attention.

The finger tiles are Japanese inspired and we love the repetition of texture and clean vertical lines.

A couple of hidden features we love in the kitchen design, along with the pantry pocket doors, are the interior of the drawers and cupboards which we made black instead of the usual white for an elevated finish. And the hidden corner cupboards on the island. Check out our Instagram Story highlights to see more.

To our clients… thank you so much for allowing us to share these photos and our journey. But most of all for being fabulous clients and trusting us even when we pushed you out of your comfort zone. We recently learnt that the feature that had most worried our client was the built-in banquette, but she trusted our design and bravely went there! Now (as we always find) the part she was most worried about is one of her favourite things. May all our future clients be as brave and trusting :)