This striking industrial vintage family kitchen was designed by Artichoke with the team from the client’s architect and interior design practice, Studio Indigo.
Inspiration for the room was taken from many places, including the Chiltern Firehouse restaurant, known for its relaxed, vintage and stylish interiors.
The main kitchen island was made from rift cut French oak, which our specialist period finishers worked on to create an authentic period feel for the piece. The fitted painted kitchen joinery in the background allows the island to appear as an individual piece of furniture, reinforcing the impression it is a repurposed antique.
The worksurface on the main island and backsplash was Carrara marble, the worktop material of choice in Georgian kitchens. It is an understated and elegant marble which works well in a period setting. You can read more about Carrara in our blog post, Carrara and the English Country House. For the moulded raised top we chose Zinc, a material often used for bar tops. It wears well, ages beautifully and adds a crisp detail to the island’s raised surface.
Artichoke’s first suggestion was to move the entrance to the kitchen’s pantry which was originally positioned where the main sink is currenty located.
The original pantry door was dividing the kitchen and making it hard to create a room which functioned on a practical level.
By moving the pantry entrance to under the back stairs, behind the kitchen, we were able to make better sense of the flow of the room, create more space for scullery works, and significantly improve how the room functioned.
The kitchen's industrial warehouse style with bare reclaimed London brick walls.
Solid brass is not the obvious choice for a bench seat, but for this particular project it made perfect sense.
There was already a great deal of timber in the kitchen, and it was felt the intoduction of some well enginered metalwork would reinforce the industrial warehouse style heritage of the space.
Solid brass is incredibily heavy; it took four Artichoke fitters just to carry each of the shelf uprights into the house. For the solid brass to work, consideration was given to structurally supporting the piece. We consulted with the project’s structural engineer before designing special pads which we integrated into the floor. These pads support rigid steel tubes hidden within the bench seat, onto which the solid brass shelves are supported.
Some of Artichoke's cabinet making team behind the assembled kitchen in our workshop. 
