More Than a New Kitchen – Achieving a Truly Bespoke Design
A new kitchen is one of the most significant investments a homeowner can make, and for families, it’s far more than just a place to cook—it’s the heart of the home. It’s where homework is done, special occasions are celebrated, and daily life unfolds. While high-quality, handmade cabinets and a beautiful countertop are essential, engaging a bespoke kitchen designer like Papilio can ensure that the extra bespoke features elevate a design from a functional to a genuinely tailored and harmonious one, tailored to your family’s unique lifestyle.
Commissioning a bespoke kitchen designer will undoubtedly allow you to create a plan that caters to the whole family’s needs. Whether you are seeking customised drawers, a hidden pantry, a pet station, or a place for you all to relax after a delicious meal, a handmade kitchen will allow you the freedom to be as creative with your space as you wish.
Over the past two decades, we have designed handmade kitchens for every type of family and created bespoke features that allow our clients to enjoy their perfect kitchen for years. Here are three examples of innovative and customised additions to our kitchen designs.
The Fulham Kitchen in London
The Fulham Kitchen in London is complete with bespoke features, which include clean lines with hand-laid oak veneers that provide sophistication and a welcome contrast when paired with the vibrance of the central cabinets. It also highlights slatted wall coverings for soundproofing and mid-century furniture and styling. It boasts a central kitchen island topped with an extremely rare Grey Grigio Di Luna Marble. The homework station was an added extra to help the young family fully utilise the space at any time of day, unifying activity in the handmade kitchen.
The Cotswolds Manor House Kitchen
The Cotswolds Manor House Kitchen project features plenty of bespoke elements. The homeowners wanted a functional kitchen that embraced the Georgian style of the building. Our design team created a custom-made kitchen island with enough space to seat four informally. It incorporated a large drawer and pot rail to store a plethora of cooking implements collected from around the globe during 30 years of travel. The chef of the house wanted the cabinet height to accommodate her time spent in the kitchen, and of course, we made it happen. And the must-have was the bespoke pet station for their beloved dogs, complete with a wash area by the back door to prevent muddy paws from bounding into the new kitchen.
The Copper Kitchen in Somerset
The Copper Kitchen in Somerset is another example of a fully bespoke design project. We focused on beautiful copper as the overall design feature in partnership with traditional cabinet making with solid timbers and stone. The handmade kitchen features a solid wood surround, glass wall cabinets, and a copper-clad, Neolith-topped kitchen island. To accelerate the ageing process of the copper, we applied heat from a blowtorch, which resulted in an iridescent, almost oily appearance. The copper was used to clad the drawers and sections of the island, creating focal points in the bespoke kitchen. Our client’s love of entertaining was another consideration, so we designed a custom-made copper ice trough set into the kitchen island. The inlaid trough is perfect for chilling champagne, serving food, or growing culinary herbs. We took the concept to the next level by adding colour-changing LEDs so that the tailored feature could take centre stage.
