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Essex, England · Freestanding

Freestanding Oak Kitchen

A solid oak island on turned legs, standing free in a barn, with painted units and an oak dresser arranged around it rather than fitted to it.

Essex, England · Freestanding

The work

A kitchen made as furniture rather than as a fitted run. The island is solid oak on heavy turned legs with an oak top, standing clear of everything else. Around it are painted base units with oak countertops and a tall oak dresser in the corner, each a separate piece. The floor is riven slate and the frame of the building is exposed.

Why nothing here is fitted

In a barn with an exposed frame and a vaulted ceiling, a continuous fitted run fights the building. Freestanding pieces do not: they sit in the volume rather than lining it, and the walls stay legible. It is also the only arrangement that survives the building moving. An oak frame is still working long after it is converted, and a kitchen scribed rigidly into it will show that within a couple of winters.

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A turned oak leg meeting a slate flagstone floor at the corner of the freestanding island
The oak island from the end, turned legs and a bank of drawers, with the range and its hood behind
The island standing free in the barn, green-painted perimeter cabinetry behind it and glazing to the garden beyond
A drawer pulled out of the oak island to show the hand-cut dovetails in the drawer box
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.