The High Wycombe kitchen with a truly delightful Italian twist

For a first home, this house provides an awful lot. The space inside is surprising and it has a pleasant back garden too. It used to have a front hedge also, but I will say no more on that subject and soon it is to have a great kitchen. I must admitt, I have been looking forward to coming here for a long long time and I may prove very difficult to remove. They did make it quite clear that we are always welcome, will they probably end up regretting that? We will wait and see.

So here we are, could you design a kitchen this bad? Not sure myself, but whoever did had an imagination thats for certain. The colours blend especially, whats the word I am looking for? oh yes, really badly. Nothing we can't deal with so lets get going and start stripping. One of my favourite past times.

There is so much going on in here it is difficult to keep up. Different colours that do not go together, different types of flooring. It will all be replaced with colours that complement one another, flooring that will tie in together making it feel more like one big space.

Lighting is so important in any room, especially in a kitchen, this strip light will be replaced with 13 downlights. Thats after we have removed and replaced this wavy ceiling.

More bright colours, where do people find these? They're not just on the walls either! I am of course referring to the pink slippers through the doorway.

So one good photo deserves another. Very rarely do I allow photos of ourselves on our website. It may put people off contacting us so I will use this one as a test case. I've added it cause Dave and I came in one day just to find this one of me and another one of Dave printed and stuck on the wall. The one of Dave is too scarey and it may be upsetting to small children so I have decided to not show it. So to you both, I hope it puts a smile on your face. Anyway, back to work, please notice that what ever we touch now just falls off creating us more work.

So with the walls stripped, the ceiling now has to come down. The ceiling has to be replaced, but it also allows us to rewire the lighting circuits, the kitchen ring and the new cooker circuit.

I wonder if people ever think, I hope that they can put it all together again? Perhaps someone will tell me one day. Until that time I will assume everybody has complete faith in us.

So with the ceiling down and the pantry cupboard removed, the space is starting to show its potential. The utilities cupboard that you see on the left will also be removed opening up the space even further.

If you think that you can see bamboo in this shot, do not worry it isn't your eyes playing tricks on you. It is actually bamboo. Trofi, originally wanted to keep it, I could see why she wanted to save it, but I didn' t think her ideas and thoughts where appropiate for a family room, so many a discussion and threatening law suit later it went. Phew!

So in go some wires, it actually ends up being quite alot of wires!

So with the current consumer unit out of date and not suitable for our needs we need to replace this and generally tidy up things in this space.

We now need to consider pipe work and such like. This floor will need to be removed completely soon to allow for the plywood that will be needed for the underfloor heating.

It is surprising how much time and how much waste removing a floor actually creates. It as always nice though to get to the bare bones of a building. From now on in, everything that goes back is new and invariably the whole job becomes so much easier.

We can now run the rest of the wires needed to complete the kitchen circuits and finish of any pipe work that may of been left.

Plywood floor down, we are ready for the rather large task of repairing these walls. At least we have something firm to stand on.

I like pastering, probably because all of the mis-matched colours start to disappear. It sunddenly all starts to look much much smater.

If you look very closely you may just see some pink slippers that we plastered into the walls. Trofi may never know where there final resting place is.

Have you seen them yet?

At long last, with all of the floor down, the walls nicely repaired and plastered. With a brand new ceiling the units can start to go in. I always look forward to this bit and I may have mentioned this before, but its true.

A simple layout, but it uses the most of its space. Its going to work really well here and I am looking forward to when it is all finished.

Now it was very importent to Trofi that the space where the pantry once was is still big enough. To give me an idea of how much space that was required she told me that as long as two people can fit in it that would be fine. I am still not sure to this day what she was thinking exactly but I am open to suggestions if anybody has any.

Its all starting to come together now and we even have some colour on the wall. Good colours this time, well they would have to be, I chose them.

Just by adding a few doors and a couple of appliances the kitchen really does start to look complete. It's also suprising even at this stage how much there is that still needs to be done.

Next job is to sort out the flooring. We have to prime the plywood first before we can lay the heating element.

More time on my knees, but it isn't always like this.

So with the elements all layed out the tiles can start to go down. This will brighten up the kitchen tremendously. Simple square tiles in here are the right size and are a durable surface.

After laying the tiled floor, Davinder had told me that Trofi liked the heated floor so much that she had been lying on it. Interesting...

With the worktops cut and layed on the cupboards it seems that we are not that far away now.

Cornice, plinths and pelmet all help complete the look.

So here at last we have the whole thing finished. Its been a journey but an enjoyable one. So I will just sit back and let you look at a few of the finished photos.

The pantry cupboard did fit two, so I heard and...

we enjoyed taking Davinders brand new Tv apart to allow us to wire in the speakers that were ceiling mounted. I could almost see the tears in his eyes.

Another great success story I think. Warm tones give this kitchen a cosey feel. These two are very sociable and I can see this room being the focus of any party. In fact we where invited to one and I remember that day very well. We ended up in their bathroom looking at their leaky shower! What a party. I love the colour choice, Apple white with its softness and the bold contrast with the Overtly Olive on adjacent walls looks great. It all blends together very well and just simply works.

So yet again, we have to say a big big thank you to our clients Trofi and Davinder. This kitchen provided David and I many moments that we shall both remember for a long time. Me especially. I remember the time when you Trofi really wasn't that interested in what was being done ( do you remember the handle conversation? ) and for me that was a little hard to understand being so passionate about what we do. It was then great to see as time went by that you really started to take an interest and even showed some excitement as things happened. From spending time choosing the grout colours to having a difficult time choosing worktops because someone kept throwing more ideas into the pot. You even picked up a paint brush one Friday to help out and that was a super special day. Davinder, it was also great to see you get stuck in helping us take down walls, even when you had yet to get permission from the boss. One hell of a brave man, but as you can see it was worth the risk. You both were brilliant and I will remember this job as one of the greatest. It may be very hard to get rid of us now, but you have only yourselves to blame for being so welcoming. Davinder we still want to sample that chicken of yours, don't think that we have forgotten! I hope to stay in contact for all time. Thanks again Dave and Ray. Twin & Earth



Ps. Just for the record, it looks AMAZINGLY FANTASTIC!!