The work
A painted in-frame kitchen in The Essex: moulded and fielded doors, astragal-glazed wall cupboards, a deep cornice, and carved chimneypieces built around the appliances rather than canopies hung above them.
The island carries the sink and the preparation; the run under the leaded windows carries the second sink; the tall cupboards take the steam and combi ovens and an integrated coffee machine. A steel pan rack hangs over the island on chain.
The chimneypieces
There are two. One frames a blue twin-oven range cooker, the other a cast woodburner. Both are carved oak with fluted pilasters, a moulded cornice and a carved centre tablet, made as pieces of furniture in the workshop and then set around the appliance rather than boxed out of sheet material and stuck on.
The carving is cut by hand. The profiles on the doors and the cornice are run on our own spindle moulder, on blocks ground to sections taken from real houses, which is why they sit next to period joinery without looking like a copy of it.
Why The Essex
The Essex belongs in a house that is already carrying that language — a room with a moulded skirting, an architrave with a section to it, a cornice worth matching. In a plain room it looks like a costume. Here, against leaded casements and a stone floor with black diamond insets, it does not.
Specification
| Range | The Essex |
|---|---|
| Setting out | Drawn in CAD, then again at full size as a rod pinned above the bench. Machining is taken from the rod, not the screen. |
| Carcass | 18mm birch-faced plywood, glued and screwed, 9mm backs housed in rather than pinned on. Adjustable feet throughout. |
| Face frames | Solid timber, mortice and tenon, with scribed filler stiles where the joinery meets the building. |
| Drawer boxes | Solid European oak, 16mm sides, through-dovetailed front and back by hand, waxed. |
| Runners | Full-extension soft-close, rated to 40kg. |
| Painted work | Four coats, brushed by hand in our own finishing room, with the final coat cut in on site after fitting. |
| Oiled work | Hard-wax oil, applied and cut back three times. |
| Fitting | By the people who made it. Nothing is subcontracted and nothing arrives flat-packed. |
| Full specification | Door style, timber, finish reference, worktop, ironmongery and appliance schedule for this commission are available to specifiers on request. |
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Tell us about the room, the house and roughly when you would like to be cooking in it. We will tell you honestly whether we are the right people for it.
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