There's something unashamedly wholesome and reassuringly solid about the work that goes into a Plain English kitchen. Words such as ‘honed’, ‘jointed’, ‘waxed’ and ‘hammered’ are used to describe the labouring that takes place by hand at the company’s home at Stowupland Hall, a Grade II-listed Georgian house set deep in the Suffolk countryside.
The company was established in 1992 by Katie Fontana when she couldn’t find a plain enough cupboard finish for her own kitchen. With an eye on the simplicity of early-Georgian joinery, she and her business partner, Tony Niblock, produced their first design, ‘the long-house kitchen’.
Twenty five years later, the founding tenets remain strong: nothing produced is off-the-shelf and every piece is custom made with the promise that all the cabinetry will fit the space perfectly. This kitchen is in a Dorset farmhouse that dates back to the 18th century.
The owners have chosen the Spitalfields design with Folgate doors — evocative names from an area of London close to Katie’s heart. Centre stage is the Georgian precursor to the kitchen island: a preparation table topped with wide-plank Pippy Oak and painted in Little Greene’s French Grey Pale 161.
Fundamental to this traditional design, with its contemporary and uncluttered finish, is the wall of full-height numbered cupboards that disguise all manner of goods, machinery and essential storage, painted in Paint and Paper Library’s Blue Blood, which contrasts strongly with the rest of the cabinetry, which is in Little Greene’s French Grey 113.
One of the company’s signature additions is the painted ladder set on a runner — critical for reaching the top row of storage cupboards.
www.plainenglishdesign.co.uk; 01449 774028
-
Uniquely unique? The Yorkshire grain silos transformed into a home that's a symphony in glass, steel and curvesAmid the beautiful countryside of North Yorkshire, on the edge of the Castle Howard Estate, The Silos is a property for which the word 'house' simply doesn't cut it. And that's not the only way in which it's made us throw out the dictionary.
-
Polluting water executives now face up to two years in prison, but will the new laws make much of a difference?The Government has announced that water company executives caught covering up illegal sewage spills could now be imprisoned for two years, under new laws — but many still have their doubts.
-
How to create a serene, yet hard-working kitchenPlain English worked with antique dealer Robert Young to make this traditional kitchen with an effortlessly relaxing colour scheme that marries perfectly with the views over beautiful gardens.
-
Why kitchens are going green — literallyGreen is the perfect colour for a kitchen, says Amelia Thorpe.
-
A modern kitchen perfectly framed by the exquisite ancient beamsArtichoke designed a discreet and timeless kitchen to complement a converted granary. Amelia Thorpe takes a look.
-
Yes, you can put a new kitchen in a Grade I-listed house — and this beautiful example shows howTraditional cabinetry was a key ingredient in the sympathetic restoration of a Grade I-listed Tudor house in Shropshire.
-
A London townhouse kitchen transformed to be sociable, practical and charmingThe new owners of this London townhouse have reconfigured it to create a sociable space for cooking and entertaining.
-
A beautiful new kitchen sympathetically created for a 16th century manor houseLimewash walls, a large island and plenty of open shelving combine to create a kitchen that’s sympathetic to this 16th-century manor house in Somerset.
-
10 things I wish I'd known about doing up old houses before I started, by Country Life's interiors guru Giles KimeCountry Life’s executive editor and resident interiors expert Giles Kime shares the lessons he’s learnt from the experience of dragging a succession of houses into the 21st-century.
-
Seven beautiful new looks in kitchens, from classic cabinetry to 80s revivalThe latest looks in the kitchen, selected by Amelia Thorpe.
