The Arcadian Kitchen For the complete renovation of a period home in Tyneside, extending at the back of the property into a former coach house, Julia Brown of Mowlem & Co created a timelessly classic, highly personalised and detailed kitchen/living design, organised into distinct zones. The heart of the fully bespoke brief was ‘sociability’ as the homeowners love to entertain, and maximizing views from the wall of bi-fold doors to the garden, but this highly practical scheme has been conceived to also offer a lasting beauty. From all points of access, the views of the room are pleasing and varied but especially from the garden into the spacious and inviting room. The family love to cook, but wanted to stay connected to the ‘living’ aspect of the room while doing so (and while keeping certain functions and storage areas neatly tucked away), thus the multi-functional L-shaped island unit features both a built in dining booth and a handy curved breakfast bar. Julia also specified a stud wall partition and designed a separate boot room / laundry area, as well as a walk-in pantry with oak shelving and pull-out wicker baskets, behind this both accessed by frosted glass doors. These doors flank the new wall of full-height, corniced units housing the sink, creating a pleasing sense of symmetry. The impressive yet refined proportions of the framed furniture feature a flat centre panel door with "angled" rails, hand-painted in Farrow & Ball’s Pelt colour on the island unit, and Strong White on the other units. There are also accents of limed oak on the breakfast bar and the open shelving above the sink, while the 30mm thick worktops are granite in Crystal White. An end grain chopping board reaches across the section of worktops ion the island that house the food prep area and a second smaller sink Top of the range appliances include Gaggenau ovens, gas hob and fridge freezer. The subtleties in this design story are told elegantly through its distinctive details. Special touches include: a tall chalkboard in one corner with sockets and a shelf for keys to be dumped and phones to be charged, an open ended rack for magazines built into the dining booth, customised storage for cookbooks, pull-out serving trays, characterful steel handles and pendant lights, and many other clever elements.