- Sep 30, 2024
- 10 min read
Updated: Nov 25, 2025
We asked some seriously stellar people what they have learned from creating their very own superb culinary caves.
In our previous feature on curtains, I asked if anyone had specific topics they’d like to explore further. Natalie Tilbury responded with a request, ‘If you ever feel inclined to discuss a creative approach to kitchens, I’d greatly appreciate it.’ While I must admit that kitchens are not an area I often feel inspired to delve into, and my experience in kitchen renovations is fairly limited, I wanted to give this topic the attention it deserves.
When we moved into our new home, we took a minimalistic approach, opting for small updates like painting the cupboards and changing the handles to maintain environmental responsibility, this also happened to be the most cost-effective option. However, this isn’t exactly groundbreaking advice.
Determined not to let Natalie down, I turned to a few trusted connections from Tat whose expertise in kitchen design is both innovative and inspiring. They were kind enough to share valuable insights and creative ideas from their own experiences, and I’m confident these suggestions will offer plenty of inspiration. I hope you find their advice as insightful as I did. Enjoy!
Maria Le Mesurier, Creative Director of Woodedit.
For me, the principle is the same in any kitchen really, keeping it simple. Of course, I mainly work around our own pieces from our WoodEdit collection. For us, a big kitchen table and XL benches work brilliantly, as I have five children and endless extras at most mealtimes. The kitchen in our last house was big, but we are now in a cottage by the sea in Devon, and the rooms are a lot smaller. We still have a big table in the kitchen, and it takes up a lot of the available space, but this is what I wanted as so much of our time is spent here.
Our WoodEdit Kitchen Island is great - a useful work surface that looks good and gets better and better with age - and I have piles of our serving boards to hand, which I use for a multitude of things.
I haven't done a kitchen from scratch for ages, and in time, we will be in our new home, but for now, I have made enough amendments to make it feel like it’s my style. I don’t like clutter at all, so we only have the complete necessities on the counter - plus baskets of fruits and bread, that kind of thing, so it is practical but looks good at the same time. It has to look clean and highly organised, or I cannot think straight.
I only use natural materials - wood, stone, natural linens and earthy colours - so that everything looks streamlined, calm and minimal.
Instagrams are @marialemesurier and @woodedituk, and their website www.woodedit.co.uk
Lisa Mehydene, Founder of edit58
I would love to share my thoughts on our own kitchen design - in our Cotswold Barn House.
When we purchased the property, we knew the kitchen would be the centre of the home - it is the kitchen and the dining room combined, so I wanted it to feel homely, warm and comfortingly like it had always been that way, despite having to redo the entire space completely. To achieve this, I felt it was crucial to blend vintage freestanding pieces that would add texture, depth and history with new cabinetry from British Standard cupboards.
The starting point was a vintage glass-fronted shop counter that I sourced from a dealer in Belgium. It's a reassuring hunk of wood and the perfect storage piece to house endless pieces of vintage crockery whilst also providing a length of useful prep space. I purchased it before we had the offer accepted on the house (I wouldn't recommend this!), and just prayed it would fit into the redesigned space. It does - with about 2cm to spare! British Standard were then brilliant at designing their cabinetry around this piece so it all works together. We also added a vintage florist’s table as our dining table and a glass-fronted Indian Wall cabinet from our local Farm shop (The Organic Farm Shop in Cirencester) to store glassware.
Combined with the new cabinetry, there is enough of a 'mix' going on to give the sense that the space evolved over time and hopefully doesn't feel 'new'. We also opted to have some of our cabinet's fabric skirted (In Howe's Littler F linen, ditsy floral print) to soften the run of cabinets and create a more country kitchen/informal feel. To further add warmth and make the room feel more like a cosy living space rather than a functional kitchen - we have added artwork, lamps, chair cushions and chosen a 'rhubarb and custard' colour scheme.
So - my advice is definitely to mix old and new if you're looking for a more textured and layered aesthetic; think about how colours/fabrics/lighting can soften the space and add warmth, and really think about how you will use the space. To this end, we had our AGA converted to electric as we knew we wanted to be more economical and wouldn't require the AGA to be on at all times.
Their Kitchen - British Standard Cupboards (1) House And Garden Home Shoot (2) Pictures that inspired me - and John Derian's use of a shop counter in his own kitchen was definitely front of mind when I found ours. (3)
Avoid designing cabinetry that will date and look at styles and materials that complement or accentuate your home's period architectural details. Try to work out the ‘triangle’ the best you can, although not always possible unless you’re doing a major refurb. Lighting is also a crucial factor – for The Dolphin Street kitchen, I had to focus on bringing as much light in as possible so I knocked through into the living area and added a Georgian glass partitioned wall to keep the rooms zones but pull as much light in as possible. I used a white marbled quartz top so the natural light bounced off. I think a paint finish can also help lift reflected light, so I used Modern Eggshell from F&B.
Our units are just Ikea, Kungsbacka, made from recycled bottles. The table was bought from Paul’s Emporium, and the chairs are from Habitat, bought in the mid-70s by my parents.
The floor is a reclaimed quarry but is a perfect match for the original tiles, which all broke as I tried to get them up with the help of friends and family.
I have a bit of an obsession with slipware and general ceramic tut! And chairs – the ‘Jetsons’ chair bought for the Peanut Vendor, green Colombo chair from Dudley Waltzer, and yellow Bartoli chair from Everything but the Dog.
Shelves (practical everyday stuff on the bottom ones, pretty tut for the top shelves that you can’t reach!) – designed by my lovely friend Michael Corsar with joinery by great local firm Debens.
Pendant lights are Hans Due early ’70s Optimas, bought from separate sellers and sweetly not quite matching.
Everything must have a place
The first thing I did when planning my kitchen was to write a list of every single plate, glass and piece of kitchen equipment and make sure that it was stored in the kitchen and that it worked with the flow of the kitchen. The worst thing in a kitchen is when the glasses are too far from the water, or the cutlery is too far from the hob, and you can't grab a spoon to taste what you're cooking. Every pot, pan and tupperware had to have a home. That then dictated how many cupboards, shelves and drawers we needed where everything lived, and it made the kitchen the best place to be in the house because it all worked so well. I watched a video of Rita Konig, and she said that in order to make a room work, you needed to have everything in the right place. So I also made sure that the armchairs had side tables for cups of tea, the window seat had a lamp so that you could read in the evening, and I had power points where I wanted to use kitchen mixers.
Lighting
Lighting needs to serve two purposes in a kitchen: practical light for cooking, cleaning, etc. and then dimmed warm light for dining. So I decided to have spots over the work surfaces, hanging lamps above the dining table and standing lamps in all the corners of the room, all of which were on dimmers. The only area I wish I had put more lighting was some wall lamps and arched arm lamps over the hanging open shelves.
Surfaces
Wood, slate, quartz, marble and many more to choose from. I tend to have a lot of things on the go while I'm cooking, so it's important that I have a durable work surface for any spills or hot pans. So I decided to go with a really simple quartz that has some marble-like veins in it but nothing too heavy or dark because I didn't want it to look like a fake marble.
Hardware
This comes right at the end of the fit-out and tends to be after you've spent all your money elsewhere, but make sure to budget for nice hardware. I did not! I picked up some small gold knobs and handles to tide us over until we could change them to nicer fittings, but in the end, I never did! For anyone looking for nice, affordable hardware, I always send them to the Rowen & Wren website. They'll defo be where I source handles and knobs for kitchens in the future.
Colour
Colours colours are always so tricky, but I find bold colours in the kitchen tend not to stand the test of time. I either tire of the colour or find it frustrating when darker colours chip or scuff because of all the activity in the kitchen. I also find colour can make a kitchen feel really busy when there are so many other small bits on display - kettle, toaster, pots, mugs, food - so better to keep the colour neutral and calm. So, in the end, I chose Tusk Little Greene to keep it really simple and then used Drop Cloth for the skirting, window and door frames. Drop Cloth has a slight green tone to it, which I paired with some curtains from the Hackney Draper in their house pale green washed linen The Hackney Draper Pale Green Washed Linen.
Open or closed Island
Finally, to island or not to island and whether to keep the island open or closed. Ultimately, I always think an island is a good idea, but this is coming from someone who likes lots of workspace and lots of additional storage. Having said that, I chose an open island solely because the kitchen is quite slim, so I didn't want to have this hulking great block in the middle of it. So instead, I chose an island with two large drawers, one for cutlery and one we named the drawer of death that included all the random bits and bobs - batteries, keys, hand cream - you know, the drawer.
Sourcing my kitchen from different retailers was the key to keeping costs down without compromising on style and design. After attending several kitchen design appointments, it didn't take long for me to figure out that fitted kitchens cost a fortune! How I got around this was by opting for a fundamental white kitchen from B&Q but elevating the room with tiles, a worktop, shelves and hardware sourced from a range of small / mid-sized retailers. Getting away from big commercial retailers for the details has really helped the kitchen feel bespoke. The hero piece is our Iroko workshop sourced from Worktop Express. The wood is beautifully rich and adds instant texture and character to the kitchen. One of the best decisions we made was leaving space for open shelves (Folkhaus). Open shelves give you the opportunity to inject personality into a space, and my favourite vintage crockery and glassware take centre stage.
As an Interior Advisor and Colour Consultant, my own home is filled with colour. Inspiration can come from anywhere, and in the case of my kitchen, I saw this hallway and knew that was how I wanted to repaint our rather dilapidated kitchen.
The original kitchen is 20 years old, and the layout has not changed, but I installed a few things that were rather novel at the time.
First, the compost bin situated in the central island makes prepping food so much easier. Next, and this is due to my Norwegian background, I created a bread draw with a pull-out cutting board, something I could not live without. Lastly, I had a very deep cupboard where the fridge had been. I altered it to create a china cupboard (having inherited and being unable to part with a lot of plates), but because it is so deep, I reduced the depth of the shelves at the back so that I could walk into the cupboard put my hand on anything rather than things getting lost at the back because you can't see them. I found a single roll of wallpaper that came with the house and, typically, I had kept that I covered the shelves with. It is an inexpensive way to make boring shelving look pretty.
Contact Details: @the_independent_eye / The Independent Eye
Images attached are:
Of The Kitchen (1), Bread Drawer (2), Compost Bin (3), Hallway Inspiration For Kitchen (4), Inside The China Cupboard (5)
I like to add freestanding items in my kitchen design, whether that is a dresser, pot stand or butcher block. Not only do they sometimes give the space some character, I love having the ability to move and change the space to fit my needs.
Although I’m not a fan of massive statement fridges or having all the white goods on display, I do love seeing other parts of daily life out of the cupboards. Whether this is a well-stocked plate rack, a big pot of kitchen utensils, a stacked pot stand, or a washing rack hung from the ceiling. Seeing a bit of the heart and soul of the kitchen brings warmth and personality and, in my opinion, looks ten times more inviting than a sterile kitchen where there is no sign that it is used and everything is tidied away.
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