A kitchen built around a wall that had to go

The brief was simple to say and harder to do: make the kitchen feel twice the size without extending. The only way to do that was to take out the wall between the kitchen and the back dining room, which meant a steel, calculations and Building Control.

We handled the structural engineer, the calculations, the notification and the sign-off. From the client's side it was one line on one quote.

The other change that made the difference was moving the sink under the window. It sounds small. It meant re-routing the waste, moving the boiler condensate, and re-planning the whole run of units — but standing at a sink looking out at a garden rather than at a wall is the thing they mention every time we speak to them.

The kitchen itself is handleless in a soft off-white, with a mid-grey island, quartz worktops and brushed brass to pick up the warmth. Underfloor heating went in under large-format porcelain while the floor was up.