Great British kitchen envy
With the smartest integrated appliances now standard in new-build houses and apartments it’s easy to see why cooking has become one of our favourite hobbies, reports DEBORAH STONE
THE GREAT British Bake Off is back on our screens with actor-comedian Matt Lucas passing the taste test as he joins the team to replace Sandi Toksvig. It seems like a million years since the programme launched on the BBC with Mary Berry back in 2010; even the switch to Channel 4 and Prue Leith seems a long time ago, although it was only in 2017.
Perhaps it’s the coronavirus effect. It has been a long year but it has been a time when baking has risen to the top of our most popular hobbies and that’s meant an increase in kitchen envy.
Whether you want to update or to extend your current kitchen or you’re looking for a new home with a kitchen large enough for both baking and socialising, it remains the most important room in the home.
For those looking to refit, the advice is to be bold with colour, although when choosing dark shades of blue, green or grey for your cabinets – a top trend at the moment – make sure you counterbalance with white te walls or other neutrals to reduce the intensity of the darker colour.
Daniela Condo, a designer at Life Kitchens ( life-kitchens. co.uk), also suggests combining different finishes and textures.
An easy way to do this is with an eyecatching work surface in granite, quartz or timber; tiled splashbacks in a contrasting colour or perhaps new taps in brass or copper instead of traditional chrome.
For those looking to move, though, a well-organised kitchen is a top priority and that is something developers have been taking more notice of for years, well before coronavirus made home cooks of us all.
Open-plan kitchen-diners with a family room attached have been popular for well over a decade and nearly all new builds now have at least an element of open-plan living.
Developers prefer this because it is a more efficient use of space. With no corridors or nooks and crannies a home can appear bigger than it really is. And buyers love it: different family members can get on with cooking, homework or reading the newspaper while being in the same room together. Open-plan also allows dinnerparty cooks to socialise with friends.
Millwood Designer Homes is known for small developments with houses designed to fit in with traditional architectural styles and at Hawthornden, its 30-house development in the Kent village of
Yalding, homes have weatherboard exteriors and clay tiles.
The collection of three-bedroom terraces and villas and five-bedroom houses also have open-plan kitchen-breakfast-family rooms that are particularly spacious.
Kitchens in Hawthornden’s Mulberry houses come with a four-ring induction hob, extractor and single electric oven plus combo microwave oven installed. They also have a fridge-freezer, washer/dryer and dishwasher. Despite Yalding’s countrys countryside location it has a railwa railway station with regular train trains to Tonbridge, a m market town just north o of Royal Tunbridge Wells. It is also six miles from Maidstone.
Prices start from £490,000 for a three-bedroom end-terrace with g garage, rising to £9 £905,000 for a fivebed bedroom detached house with double garage
( 016 01622 410500; millw millwooddesigner homes.co.uk).
Even new-build apartments have cleverly designed open-plan kitchen-diner-living rooms.
Flats at Chapel Riverside on the River Itchen in Southampton are particularly good for downsizers or first-time buyers, with the Government’s Help To Buy scheme available on certain flats.
Kitchens have an integrated stainless steel oven, ceramic hob and extractor fan, as well as a fridge/freezer, dishwasher and utility cupboard. There’s also underfloor heating, video entryphone and allocated parking. Prices start from £190,000 ( 02380 333138; inlandhomes. co.uk/developments/chapel-riverside).
“Kitchen designs have evolved as a result of Bake Off,” says Rebecca Hunt, director at Suna Interior Design. “The trend for home baking means that when we dress show homes we often dress the kitchen with a ‘baking story’.”