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A Sensory Delight Kitchen Makeover With Jessica

In this sensory delight kitchen makeover with Jessica Thornton, she took inspiration from her favourite restaurants to create a bold, boutique-style interior using dark tones, textured surfaces, and aged metallic finishes. As a personal stylist with a first-class degree in Surface Design, Jessica has an eye for the finer things, while her engineer partner Mitch is a fan of sleek, modern style. Together, they set about bringing this attention to detail and love of contemporary design to their first home in Yorkshire. Taking a room that had been left untouched for decades, this kitchen makeover transformed the awkward layout and old-fashioned features into an impressive cooking space.

Stuck in the sixties

With a wood-panelled ceiling, pine cupboards, and lino counters, Jessica's old room was in drastic need of some TLC. The narrow, galley layout was also impractical making mealtimes a challenge.

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Stuck in the sixties

The original design in Jessica's cooking space was dated and in need of a complete overhaul. To improve the cramped floorplan, Jessica opted to knock down an internal wall between the cooking and dining areas, creating an open-plan space. This allowed her to include a large island, which doubles up as a casual place for meals and entertaining, making the room more multi-functional.

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A modern masterpiece

Jessica is all about the detail, while her partner, Mitch, loves clean lines – so they chose an integrated handle design with Clerkenwell to create a contemporary canvas that was easy to layer with materials.

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A modern masterpiece

The integrated handle of our Clerkenwell collection offers a streamlined and simple look that allowed Jessica to play with bolder hues. Selecting charcoal for a dark base, she could embellish the look with marble counters and gold accents for a statement layered effect. While the design is ultra-modern, traditional features like the high ceilings match the period of the property and are enhanced by floor to ceiling cupboards.

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The design details

First choice charcoal

Inspired by high-end decor, Jessica was instantly drawn to charcoal – a bold hue common in boutique interiors.

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First choice charcoal

Opting for a simple door design with a built-in handgrip gave Jessica the freedom to adopt a statement shade of charcoal - the deepest tone in our collection - to reflect the boudoir style she hoped for. Combining this with a super-matt finish intensifies the dark tone and adds a velvety touch to the design that is reminiscent of luxury hotels and high-end restaurants.

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Built-in breakfasts

After spotting a built-in breakfast unit in her builder's home, Jessica recreated this feature for majestic mornings.

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Boutique breakfasts

Toast and tea-making supplies can take up space on the counter and would clutter the clean lines of Jessica's cooking space. Instead, she chose to store these essentials in a made-to-measure cupboard that keeps them out of sight and easily accessible. This bespoke idea draws on the hotel-like luxury that Jessica loves – and ensures an impressive reveal when guests ask where the kettle is.

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Show-off storage

A floating shelf was fitted to this statement design, enabling the couple to switch up accessories with ease.

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Show-off storage

One of Jessica’s favourite features in the room is the bespoke shelf, which can be decorated with different items to quickly change the style of the whole space. Opting for shelving instead of wall cupboards also helped the project stay within budget, as it was an affordable alternative to additional units. It also breaks up the dark colour scheme to make the room feel more open.

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Stow-away sockets

With clean lines in mind, Jessica replaced existing power outlets with pop-up sockets for work and play.

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Stow-away sockets

Adding pop-up sockets to the island transforms the couple's room into a practical spot for home working, and makes it easy to charge phones, or plugin extra kit, like a slow cooker. Combined with other integrated devices, this keeps the couple’s design sleek and uncluttered, so it retains its boutique quality while remaining functional for everyday life.

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