I then set about laying the island through the middle of the room to create plenty of space around the island for flow and ergonomics.
This left me with a large back wall that faced out to the maize fields and this is where I positioned all the tall cabinetry.
Taking on board my owners’ wishes, I designed a large quadruple pocket door system that can open completely up to expose the hidden ovens and cooktop.
When closed, this large pocket door system allowed the kitchen to seem like a large cabinet or piece of furniture, integrating all of the appliances as desired.
To achieve this door system we had to work on the finer details of the folding doors to allow them to bi-fold and then still return into the dedicated niche.
This mechanism required a lot of fine tuning and detail.
We worked on the large, full height doors to allow less joins and detail and the doors were made from rough sawn timber to keep with the country theme.
We also had to create enough ventilation for the appliances operating behind the pocket doors and allow the right ergonomics for operating the cooktop and ovens in an enclosed space.