Its common for Australian country manors to have a grand country kitchen and Clair House is certainly no exception! Most would say that in this case, the rest of the house has been built around the kitchen as it dominates the central area as a kind of hub, with the other parts of the house as distinct and separate radiating spokes.

The Kitchen has featured in quite a few well known magazines and was the recipient of two 2008 HIA awards for New Kitchen Project over $30,000 and the HIA Victorian Best Kitchen Project of the Year.

Extensive detailed design went into creating this kitchen and certainly no expense spared, from its imported stoves from France and Ireland through to the Chrystal Chandeliers source from the same company that manufacturers for the worlds leading hotels. The following information is a reprint of an article about the kitchen that appeared in Country Home Ideas which describes the story of the kitchen’s creation.

Country Home Ideas Kitchen Profile: Volume 9 Issue 11

Title: Not just a pretty space

Intro: It’s big, bright and beautiful, but beyond the facade of this classic kitchen there’s a host of clever organisational features that would make top chefs swoon.

Story by Zoe Liddy
It’s big, bright and beautiful, but beyond the facade of this classic kitchen there’s a host of clever organisational features that would make top chefs swoon.

In 2008, this glorious kitchen in an updated Victorian home took out the HIA award for New Kitchen Project over $30,000 and the HIA Victorian Best Kitchen Project of the Year, but with two positive, well-prepared homeowners – Peter and Abigail – at the helm and a respected company on board for its design and manufacture, it was headed for success from the get-go. A former caterer, Abigail is au fait on what’s needed to elicit super-efficient and enjoyable cooking experiences so she came to the project with a very specific list of requirements. Disenchanted with their previous kitchen, which had an array of unappealing features, not least ‘old wiring of concern’, they included a kitchen refurbishment in their greater home renovations, vowing never again to experience the sense of confinement and isolation this dark and poky room gave them.

CHECKING THE BOXES: The couple also wanted this new space to be ultra comfortable, to the point it would    become ‘part of the family’. As their socialising at home is largely  kitchen-based and often involves conversations around sizzling  saucepans, they wanted a design that would accommodate both small  and large groups and also allow separate sets of preparations to  happen concurrently, mostly so their children, who’ve left home but who  all love to cook, could help with meal prepping when they visit their  parents. They wanted a ‘sense of flow and order’ to prevail too, and  naturally it was important the room be harmonious with the style of the  rest of the house. Past experience dictated much of their needs and wants for it but Abigail augmented these with inspiration from magazines. “The house was full of them!” Peter laughs. “She’d cut out things she liked to inform the manufacturers on the overall design concepts, so the main challenge then was to look for solutions that were practical but commensurate to the design.” After an extensive search for a kitchen company, both locally and in Melbourne, they chose a Bendigo group, Central Kitchens, not least because the team was prepared to work closely with the couple on finer details, like continuing the skirting boards from the adjacent family room to be the kickboards at the base of the benches. “It was total collaboration,” Peter says of the partnership. “Very early on the design was drawn on the floor to give an appreciation of how it’d work and this was followed by cardboard mock-ups and extensive measurements, so there were very few surprises at the end.” The layout of the 6m x 7m kitchen is quite specific: the food preparation area has a fridge/freezer, stainless-steel sink for food washing and a French Lacanche stove which has a faucet over the stove for filling large pots. The other side of the bench is for plating, with the drawers below containing everyday crockery and cutlery, while the ‘bay-window’ section is for washing up. The Stanley slow-combustion stove at the far end of the room is the main cooker during winter and also provides hot water for the home’s hydronic heating; then there’s the walk-in pantry which has a second full-size fridge and appliances, along with benches and power outlets for dry-mixing so as to reduce the noise in the main areas. And there are power points below the main island benchtops too. “In practice it all works better than expected, probably aided by the overall space we have,” Abigail says.

STYLE MATTERS: Yellow on the walls brings the feel of a bright sunny day, while white cupboards create the clean, crisp feel Abigail was after. Black granite benchtops, which the couple report are great for cutting down on glare when cooking, are a nice foil to these and the black stoves lend old-world charm to the room, as do ceiling roses and the chandeliers – so heavy they required special reinforcing of the mounting brackets in the roof! Mantelpieces, corbels, decorative plates, Ginger jars, Cornishware and copper pots all add to the style, and the space is finished with a timber dining table with cross-back chairs from Malmaison, one of Abigail’s favourite stores. “Edwynna knows her products and has a superb eye for mixing and matching,” she says. “Their pieces are all exquisite and elegant and blend in well with our theme.” The pair are thrilled they have a gorgeous area in which to do what they love most: welcome guests into their home to eat, drink and share conversation – which no doubt now revolves around the hot topic of how to create an award-winning kitchen!