Kitchen

Avid gardener Graham and his partner, Steve, approached Amos Goldreich Architecture to expand their Victorian mid-terrace house in the Stroud Green Conservation Area of Haringey, North London. “The design revolves around the garden Graham has lovingly labored over for decades,” says the founder of the eponymous firm. The rear extension includes a bright and spacious kitchen with a terrazzo island and beams clad in oak. Glazed sliding doors and a bay window connect the interior to the yard.

The house is completely off grid. It operates on solar panels, wood-fire heat and water from the lake; there’s even a compost sewage system.

Keith is passionate about cooking, so architect Tommy Haddock designed an industrial-style kitchen to meet his needs.

“The clients’ main priorities in their lives consisted of: their kids, their friends, their food,” says the firm. “We knew we had to knock down the wall that separated the kitchen from the living room to create one big, open space - this immediately created ease of flow.”

A Heath Ceramics tile backsplash in neutral tones offsets the custom walnut cabinetry.

The new kitchen is also a galley layout, but has more room to spread out lengthwise.

A custom-designed console fits the wall perfectly and creates a spot to drop keys and mail, or check appearances before going out the door.

The fireplace was cleaned and painted. An original wall of wood paneling was preserved and extended through the home. “We wanted one full wall of the paneling to connect front of the house to the back,” say the designers. In the dining room, the Log table by Hem is surrounded by Cover chairs by Muuto. The chandelier is Brendan Ravenhill.

An inset shelf is a nice moment at the end of the counter. The globe lights are original, painted white.

The white paint color used throughout is Benjamin Moore "Simply White."

The backsplash continues into the pantry—25 feet of Zia concrete tiles in all.

The pantry has a bar, extra storage, and display for the owners’ cookbooks and favorite kitchen wares. Since it’s used every day, the architects wanted it “to equal the pleasure of being inside the kitchen,” says Edmonds. “I often tell people it's my favorite room in the house,” adds the owner.

Oak lines the interior for a tactile surprise, and the marble counter echoes the marble on the island and perimeter counters.

Custom cabinetry ensures there’s room for everything.

“The kitchen is really the heart of the home,” says the owner. “It feels very special to us.” An extra-long island hosts everything from children’s homework sessions to “cooking parties,” such as when the owners have friends over every year to make apricot jam from fruit picked in the yard. The placement of the cooktop means the cook can be working and there’s room for people to help, or mill about easily, inside and out. “We'll open the big doors and dine on the deck, and have appetizers on the island,” says the owner. “I'll still be cooking in the kitchen and never feel like I've left the party.”

By dropping the window sills to the same height as the kitchen counters, Rafael created a cleaner look and brought in more light.

From the top of the stairs, the view into the kitchen has been opened up drastically, and there’s now a visual connection to the backyard.

The kitchen now occupies the addition, and the island was detailed to look like a piece of furniture to better meld with the living room. The cabinet colors are Farrow & Ball’s Skimming Stone and Sherwin-Williams’s Garden Gate, and were handpainted instead of spray-finished, so as "not to have something too slick or sterile," says VW. "We wanted them to be warm and have personality."