My favourite room of the house... the kitchen! It needs to be practical, hardwearing and of course still beautiful.

You are of course restricted by appliances etc that are essential but this should not hold you back at all just make them features. Kitchens are such a personal space, so much time is spent in them and so much love created and poured into plates here is was important to me to create not something state of the art but something that complimented the rest of the villa and felt like it had always been there.

The original kitchen must have been put in when the villa was built in the 70's. A yellow painted cream wooden handmade construction with some amazing patterned paper liners in the draws and cupboards. A breakfast bar filled up the beautiful archway into the lounge area which we decided to open up meaning we could fill in the existing door into the entrance hall creating a 'horseshoe' kitchen area which flowed much easier into the living space.

Before and during construction images:

Colourwise it had to be blue of course! We are in Greece but I broke from tradition and used a very dark almost petrol elegant blue which I felt paired with some bronzed and aged details would work perfectly and of course I needed to add something old and loved in the form of an old small pigeon holed cabinet which hubbo managed to 'up cycle' beautifully for me.

I had to use Corian as the worktop. I have used it in so many kitchen renovations now. I love the look of stone but feel that Corian does the job just as well for less cost. There are so many finishes available, its very durable and hardwearing and you can 'create' with it as well. The local skilled carpenter / craftsman we used managed to sculpt the Corian to create a seamless sink which flowed from the worktop into the sink area and out again in a very bespoke touch which works on an aesthetic and practical level as well.

The finished kitchen:

Details

I wanted to keep the look simple a great way to do this if you can do without the storage is not to have wall cabinets in a kitchen area. This ultimately gives any kitchen more of a 'room' look rather than a cluttered utility space.

The devil is always in the details, so much time was spent sourcing the antique (looking) handles with vintage metal touches matching in with the fittings of the pendant and wall lights. The small things matter, fabric cords on the lighting rather than plastic, displayed vintage crockery handed down, picked up at markets and on online sites, gifts from friends and well thumbed cookery books all to hand when needed give a lived in feel. Quirky touches such as collected tipero bottles kept as mementos from long drawn out previous meze lunches and menu's from favourite restaurants displayed on walls make it all the more personal.

Detail images: