Northcote Home – Kitchen

The existing kitchen at the back of their Northcote home was in a long and thin room with lofty ceilings. The kitchen lacked bench space, storage and functionality. It also spread out over the room and left space for nothing else.

The clients have two young boys and the layout meant that they were always running through which was dangerous and difficult to cook around. The brief was to create a large kitchen with ample bench space and a large dining table as a destination for two busy boys to to reside, as well as allowing a space at the end of the room for a small sitting area.

The key to this kitchen is in the integrated dining table. This allowed 3.3 meters of bench space which included a family sized dining table and also left ample room at the end of the kitchen to use as a formal sitting space. Moving the island and dining table into the centre of the room also created a safe thoroughfare from the home into the backyard where the boys could run freely without interfering in the kitchen space.

The tall section of cabinets on the back wall help to shorten the room and provide a large pantry and an integrated fridge. The black shelf which runs blade-like through the kitchen does not feel heavy and narrow in the room like traditional joinery might. The Neolith benchtops are tough for family life and the black details add drama and interest, broken up by the clients timber dining table.

The table itself was the first piece of furniture the couple bought when they married. Naturally, they did not want to throw it out. So we cut it down to size, fabricated a large cylinder steel leg which copied the geometry of the handles and integrated it into the island.

Overall the end result is simple yet stylish whilst remaining both functional and durable and our clients couldn’t be happier.