Strength of purpose

It is often the case that the most adept design results from a brief with few limitations.

Kitchen designer Morgan Cronin and interior designer Ray Lind joined forces to create this sunny, substantial kitchen. The clients contacted Cronin at a very early stage of the home's construction, giving him only an outline of the kitchen walls almost a blank canvas to start the design from.

"The brief from the owners was for a light-filled space that would combine a sense of flamboyance with a solid look that wouldn't date," says Cronin. "In addition, they liked dark timber and natural stone and wanted the benchtops taller than usual to suit their height."

The house itself, designed by architect Kerry Avery, has a roof that appears to hover above the complete top floor. In the same spirit, the kitchen area is defined by floating lowered bulkheads.

"In this area of the home, Avery extended the floor and bulkhead beyond the periphery of the building, creating a long, narrow bay with full-height glazing for the kitchen to flow into," says Cronin.

In all, Cronin created three kitchen designs for the clients to consider. The consensus was in favour of an option with an extended perimeter island and a suspended extraction hood that tuck neatly into the glass-walled bay.

"Avery has created a house with a solid feel and I wanted to follow that through in the kitchen design," says Cronin. "The benchtops are 140mm deep and the island doors are all 28mm thick. I built the wall cabinetry up to 2.9m to reach the bulkheads. Raising the cabinetry to this level adds to the kitchen's solid presence and keeps all the elements in proportion."

Pantry cupboards and crockery shelves are recessed into the walls of the kitchen.

"Combined with the recessed workspace in the bay window, this arrangement leaves a clearly defined central area to show off the feature island with its Verde Bamboo granite benchtop," says Cronin. "This surface was sourced by Ray Lind."

Lind also specified the dark stained American walnut for the island doors and a complementary Pearltone metallic paint with a clear high gloss coating for the wall cabinets.

Story by: Charles Moxham