Partnering with Kestrel Furniture Ltd on the New Studio Install

Back in July 2016 I was contacted by Kestrel Kitchens, (www.kestrelfurniture.com) a local company with over 30 years’ experience in hand making bespoke kitchens with a view to developing a partnership together in 2017.

After various different conversations it seemed the perfect fit for Hastes Kitchen to become the partner and a new studio design idea was born.

After recently converting an old set of barn garages at our home, I put aside a room which had no lighting at all, perfect for filming, as natural daylight on film sets is a nightmare with inconsistency.

The room had nothing apart from recently exposed brick walls and re-applied wood cladding, it was the perfect shell to start creating a new space.

I met up with Angela, Paul and Edward from Kestrel to get an idea on how the space could best be used, after many brainstorming sessions where Kestrel really showed their creative design flair we decided that setting the kitchen out with reclaimed materials would give the desired look.

I had polished concrete, reclaimed oak and brass fittings in mind and Kestrel designed around this perfectly. They recommend a visit to a local reclamations yard wherein they  got  put aside 2 metre lengths of reclaimed Italian slate from the beds of 1940’s pool tables!. It was a brilliant idea and the slate emulated a darker concrete, perfect for the counter tops. I was also recommended to look over the bottom boards to an old Norwich railway carriage to see if the oak, once stripped back would give the desired effect. It did! It had beautiful old characteristic grains and colourings that you couldn’t replicate in modern day wood.

I then had the Kestrel designs back and the original haberdashery cabinet, from the first ever Hastes Kitchen videos, could carefully be incorporated into the new set. The designs were brilliant!

Installation day arrived in December and after 3-4 months of design and locating materials, the set was ready to be installed, and seamlessly it was. Within  two days their fitting team had fitted all the cabinets and we were ready for the arrival of the worktops which would complete the job and deliver a truly handmade bespoke kitchen.