Sculpture or kitchen island? Both!

Marble – since ancient times this valuable natural stone with its unique grain has been used for palaces and majestic buildings. Few other building materials ooze this much splendour. However, marble is sensitive to acidity and moisture, which is why more robust artificial stone is used in kitchens in place of natural stone and it is hard to tell the difference between them. This is also the case with this luxury kitchen in England in which the marble effect combined with contrasting black elements such as BORA Pure and small hints of gold make the room a true work of art.

When viewing an apartment in a fully renovated, listed manor in Epping called Gaynes Park Mansion, the customer fell in love with the kitchen. Like all of the kitchens in the seven luxury apartments in this Victorian building with landscaped gardens, this one was created by Urban Myth Kitchens from London. Unable to get the kitchen design out of her head, she later commissioned the London kitchen studio to build her a new kitchen.

Seamless

Peter Hill, Head of Sales at Urban Myth sums it up: ‘Clean lines and lots of storage space – those were the customer’s design specifications. What’s more, as quality is very important to her, only top products were eligible.’ This was also the case of the star feature of the kitchen: the kitchen island with a worktop made of the sintered stone Calacatta Gold – a white artificial stone with a shiny golden vein, which looks like real marble. ‘We matched the stone worktop to the stone flooring that the customer had already ordered before buying the kitchen and we think that the two of them go together wonderfully, creating a seamless transition between the worktop and the floor,’ Peter Hill tells us proudly.

Playing with contrasts

The island is surrounded by kitchen units with black handleless fronts and matching black appliances. In line with the idea of consistency behind the design, the sinks built into the white stone worktop, as well as the taps and the cooktop, are all black. Hill stresses that there were many reasons why a BORA downdraft cooktop extractor system was chosen. For one, ‘because the very high ceilings and total dimensions of the kitchen would not permit any functional design option other than a cooktop extractor.’ And on the other hand, because ‘the customer wanted to buy the best product in terms of efficiency and design.’ After the style-conscious customer had seen a number of options, she finally decided on BORA Pure with its flush installation, clean lines and scaled-down, minimalist appearance, which fit in perfectly in the luxurious surroundings. Black barstools round off the harmonic black and white scene.

Bold gold accents

From the painting on the wall to the shiny gold lights and the metal legs on the barstools – all of the accessories bring out the golden shimmer of the bold ‘marble veins’ and create a sense of harmony all round. So that this harmony is not disturbed by everyday objects, the owner requested plenty of units in which her pans, plates and utensils could be stowed away in a flash. Behind the doors of the tall units there is even room for larger objects such as a washing machine and a tumble dryer.