Country House Kitchen

A molded in-frame painted kitchen built around two carved chimneypieces, with a full island, astragal-glazed wall cupboards and a steel rack hung over on chain.

Essex, England · The Essex

The work

Molded and fielded doors, astragal-glazed wall cupboards, a deep cornice, and carved chimneypieces built around the appliances rather than vent hoods hung above them. The island carries the sink and the preparation; the run under the leaded windows carries the second sink; the tall cupboards take the steam and combination ovens and an integrated coffee machine.

Two chimneypieces, cut by hand

There are two chimneypieces. One frames a blue twin-oven range, the other a cast wood burner. Both are carved oak with fluted pilasters, a molded cornice and a carved center tablet, made as pieces of furniture in the workshop and then set around the appliance rather than boxed out of sheet material and stuck on. The carving is cut by hand, and the profiles are run on our own spindle molder, on blocks ground to sections taken from real houses. That is why they sit next to period joinery without looking like a copy of it.

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A cream painted island under a dark granite top, with an inset sink and bridge faucet, against leaded windows

The painted pot rack hung on chains, seen from below against the ceiling and the windows

A dark granite run under the leaded windows, with open shelving below and a chequered stone floor

The island from the other side, sink and faucet set into the granite, leaded glazing behind

Built-in ovens stacked in a cream painted tall run, with the granite return in front of them

The room as a whole: the carved chimneypiece and range, glazed wall cabinets and the window over the sink

A glazed painted cabinet with plates and glasses ranged inside it

The carved oak chimneypiece, with roundels and fluted pilasters, framing the range

The island in the foreground and the carved chimneypiece beyond, over a chequered stone floor

The pot rack and a glass pendant seen from beneath

Specification

The same construction, whichever range

The range decides the door and the ornament. Everything behind it is built the same way, in the same building, by the same nine people — and it is built that way whether the kitchen is going to Suffolk or to Connecticut.

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Specification

Setting out	Drawn in CAD, then again at full size as a rod pinned above the bench. Machining is taken from the rod, not the screen.
Carcass	18mm birch-faced plywood (a shade under 3/4 inch), glued and screwed, 9mm backs (just under 3/8 inch) housed in rather than pinned on. Adjustable feet throughout.
Face frames	Solid timber, mortise and tenon, with scribed filler stiles where the joinery meets the building.
Drawer boxes	Solid European oak, 16mm (just over 5/8 inch) sides, through-dovetailed front and back by hand, waxed.
Runners	Full-extension soft-close, rated to 90lb.
Painted work	Four coats, brushed by hand in our own finishing room, with the final coat cut in on site after installation.
Installation	By the people who made it. Nothing is subcontracted and nothing arrives flat-packed.

Every kitchen on this site is one we have made. The images are visualizations rather than photographs of our clients’ houses. They are built from our own workshop drawings and our own photographs of the work on site, and finished with AI, because our clients ask that their houses are not photographed or published. None of it is stock imagery and none of it is somebody else’s work. Drawings, samples and references for completed commissions we will show you in person — visits to the Mickfield workshop are by appointment.

Tell us about the room.

Where the house is, roughly when you would like to be cooking in it, and what you have in mind. We will tell you honestly whether we are the right people for it.

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