This is not a story about a brand new kitchen. The master tailor at Huntsman on Savile Row used to invite his customers in to the shop whenever they were in the vicinity and wearing their Huntsman suit. He explained that he liked seeing his work as it progressed into life and observing how it was worn by it’s owner and how it was gently evolving.
We agree. Yes, of course, the day of completion and handover when everything is pristine is a thrill. For us and for the people who are about to live with a gorgeous new kitchen.
But the real quiet joy is in the longer term. Life, and use, impart a precious and extremely difficult to define or describe softness on a well made kitchen.
The odd knock. The subtle wear to an edge. What was supposed to be a linen cupboard being used perfectly for something else entirely. A warm resonance of the time that has been happily spent in the kitchen. The delight of meals cooked and eaten. The celebration that was toasted with an exquisite and robust Italian red that has left a lovely ring that can only be seen in a certain light.
This is a short story about a kitchen which is now in it’s second year of life. A kitchen that gets used an awful lot by it’s owners.
This is also a story about, possibly, our favourite season. An episode of breezy showers, lambs, bluebells and native asparagus. A cluster of weeks that, all too quickly, gives way to the overwhelming swoon of Summer.
Spring. A feast of colour. The perfect blue sky. The verdant lustre of new grass. Daffodil yellow puts every other hue in the shade for a few glorious weeks.
This is also a story about place. Where is the quintessential Sussex village?
Horsted Keynes has to be a contender. I know. Yes. It is West Sussex. The other Sussex. For us, East and West don’t mean much. What matters is Sussex. The county is defined perfectly by Horsted Keynes.
Bucolic charm and slow happiness amidst the undulating roll of the High Weald. Birdsong, the occasional raspy bellow of a steamtrain and the conversation of a flock of sheep.
This house. This kitchen. The people who live in, and use it.
A landscape. The gardens were reputedly designed and laid by Capability Brown. Whilst proof of his responsibility is difficult to find, the composition of colour, texture, proportion and relationship to light certainly conform to his discipline.
A ravishingly beautiful house set in an exquisite landscape nestled in a glorious English village in the pastoral wilderness of the High Weald in Springtime.
Here is a short story about all of this.
Early conversations with the client quickly revealed that the kitchen would not be a project politely bound by tradition.
When a client requests an industrial dishwasher as a critical feature we recognize a kindred thinker and know an extraordinary project is underway.
The La Cornu Chateau range is an imposing altar to the ceremony of cooking.
Detail is to be savoured everywhere. Burnished brass and hand sawn Oak. A kitchen composed in reference to the Capability Brown belief system of colour, texture, proportion and vista.
Serious cooking, even in a perfect kitchen, is hard work.
Moments, or hours, of well deserved relaxation on a sumptious daybed. Dappled in soft sunlight that pours through graceful leaded windows.
A generous walk in pantry concealed within an inglenook chimney is lined with 2 inch thick stone for the purpose of cooling.
The beauty of design that thinks differently.
The possibility opened up by confident clients who enjoy creativity.
This is a short story about all of that.
Maybe we should return every year to see the story unfold and the kitchen mature with grace.
It’s really not a chore.
