Kitchens to covet
Hollie Newton’s airy, light- lled Dorset kitchen brings the outdoors in, combining whitewashed Scandi simplicity with pops of colour for added warmth and character
Using light and pops of colour in your kitchen
I’m a screenwriter, creative director, gardener and cook. I wrote a bestselling gardening book a few years back, How to Grow: A Guide for Gardeners Who Can’t Garden Yet (£20, Orion Spring). I live down by the sea in Poole, Dorset, with my husband Tim, toddler Bertie and our doodle, Lettuce. This is our home – a dilapidated 1920s bungalow that we bought four years ago, completely renovating it from top to bottom.
We have a light, bright, L-shaped kitchen/living room – about 40 square metres – with an enormous peaked floor-to-ceiling window extension that makes it look far bigger than it is. The entire back wall is glass, so even on the dreariest of days it’s impossible for the kitchen to feel gloomy or cramped. Though white is the base, I’m a magpie when it comes to colour and have pops all over the place; they’re particularly concentrated in the snug living room corner.
We moved here from a basement flat in London that had a windowless galley kitchen where you had to crab-walk past each other to the cupboard. Light and space were consequently the biggest design factors with our new kitchen. Those, and an open-plan cooking/dining/living space. No more shouting to guests from the next room!
In the original layout, this room was the living/ dining room, with a folding door between. We extended it to the edge of where the terrace was, with a pitched roof to make it airier. The house has a raised position that looks down on the garden, with a silver birch and willow that arch to meet in the middle. We made the entire wall glass to give the feeling of the outside flowing in.
We kept the room L-shaped, retaining a square of terrace, so the doors open onto it. In spring and summer, they stay open and the terrace is part of the room. It’s gated, so it’s a natural toddler play pen. The link between the garden and kitchen is important, as I grow a lot of food in the raised beds and greenhouse. There’s nothing nicer than picking ingredients for dinner.
I spent years poring over kitchens and realised I don’t like wall-hanging cupboards, so I opted for storage below, leaving the walls free. Bespoke bookshelves house cookbooks, but my design master stroke was to hide the larder and utilities behind a sliding door – it’s disguised easily.
I’m a creative director, so looking at disasters and seeing what they could be is part of my job.
When we walked in, I knew this room would be the heart of the house. I designed the extension, sketching it before passing it onto architects. The old kitchen became a study, the living room the kitchen and the dining room our snug.
We had a limited budget, so the need for massive supporting steels was a moment, along with the dragging time of the build. Through a lot of research, Gumtree and value suppliers plus the odd splash-out item, we pulled off the look. The units are Howdens, but we got marble-like composite for the tops and brass fixtures. I found a secondhand Lacanche Macon range for £3,000 less than new. It took a lot of searching to find an extractor slim enough to fit in the chimney – a Faber that slides out as needed.
We went to a timber yard to find wood for the shelves – uneven-edged, so you get a sense of the trees. The tiles in our splashback are a commission from my friend, and we splashed out on a new sofa and wood-burning stove for the snug.
I used white-grey Scandi tones as a backdrop for the view, with pops of colour – the pink sofa, rescued pub sign whale, Farrow & Ball blue sliding door – and natural textures for warmth.
Essential kitchen kit?
We have two wooden-handled, silicon-topped spatulas that are so perfect that, if we ever broke or lost them, our entire house would implode.
What’s always in your fridge? Condiments – hundreds of condiments.
Give us a recipe in a sentence – maybe something you eat when you’re on your own?
Puttanesca pasta made with garlic, olive oil, dried chillies, black olives, capers, tomato, a dash of pasta cooking water, fresh basil and ungodly amounts of parmesan.
Favourite cookbook?
The Quick Roasting Tin by Rukmini Iyer.
Favourite restaurant? St John in London.
Reasons to be cheerful in 2021?
Beach breakfast picnics when the sun comes out again, which we’ll sneak in before work and nursery.