Matt Black Kitchen with Island

A matt black kitchen with island for a private house: a wall of tall units, a recess framed in an oak look and an island with a breakfast bar, in an open-plan kitchen and living space with floor-to-ceiling glazing. The fronts are flat and handleless, matching the colour of the window frames.

The island: hob, bar and sockets

The island runs parallel to the wall of units. A worktop in a dark stone look with copper veining turns down into a side panel that reaches the floor, so the end of the island carries the same pattern. The hob has a built-in extractor, which means no hood hangs over the island and the view to the windows stays open. The sockets are hidden in a pop-up block set into the worktop. On the living-room side we laid an oak-look board over the stone: the result is a bar counter for three, with a wine cooler built into the island beside it. An island of a different, rounded shape is shown in our kitchen island with a fluted front.

An oak-look recess in a black wall

Almost the whole wall is solid fronts from the floor up, with storage behind them. We marked out the sink area with a recess framed in an oak look: sides, top and worktop form a portal holding four wall-unit fronts, a splashback in the island worktop décor and spotlights. The warm wood breaks up the black surface and shows at a glance where the water is. To the right stands a tall unit with integrated appliances — an oven with a compact appliance above it — followed by a bay for the side-by-side fridge. The same pairing of dark fronts and wood on a smaller scale is our graphite and oak kitchen. Furniture for every room in one palette is in the apartment project with a single handle line.

This layout is meant for a large open space where the kitchen is visible from the living area and has to read as part of the interior rather than a working corner. A restrained palette and very few details are what we describe as the core of the look in our article on quiet luxury. Other rooms and the scope of our work are on the custom furniture for the home page.