Inside An Award-Winning Mid-Century Kitchen With A Scalloped Island

This house is on Whangarei Heads and it's quite surrounded by natural bush so we get lots of birds and there's lots of vegetation around us so it feels quite secluded. Being my own client was definitely very hard but ultimately it gave me the freedom to create something that I was quite passionate about. One of the main goals for the space of the kitchen was to create a family environment. As a family we sort of gravitate to be around the kitchen island. We also sit there to eat, the cooking is done in the same place and it's linked to the living. The wall cladding is scalloped panel from Lamin-X so that was installed over the top of the existing wallpaper. The shapes mimic other shapes in the space so they have a bit of cohesion. The island base was created to mimic the old kitchen's hammered copper range hood. It was reinvented with a liquid metal metallia and a textured coating. The benchtop of the island was meant to be quite a feature. It's called Fantastic Marble. It's got a lovely terracotta vein through it which also then reflects back to the original house where there was existing terracotta tiles and tones. The cooktop is placed with a downdraft ventilation on the centre of the island. The kitchen is a walnut veneer. It has pocket bifold doors that close to hide a sink area which is your prep station area. There is a integrated fridge and seating is situated at the end of the island. Through the process of designing my own kitchen I realised that we've been ticking boxes in kitchen design for a very long time and I feel like people are getting a little bit more open to boldness. I think there was a lot of minimalistic look, a very soft and calm and I'm quite excited to see there's a lot of bold shapes and colours sort of coming in so yeah I think it's going to be fun.