Southgate Kitchen

The brief

The client wanted a dark, dramatic kitchen with as little visual interruption as possible: black cabinetry set against pale natural stone. Appliances integrated, storage concealed, and the stone carried across the island, the rear worktop and the splashback so it behaved as one material rather than several separate surfaces.

Two requirements drove most of the technical work that followed. The sink was to be clad in the same marble as the worktop rather than dropped in as a separate fitting, and the countertops were to read as a substantial 60 mm profile. Neither is achievable with standard cabinetry and countertop construction. Both needed bespoke fabrication, drawn in full before anything was cut.

The problem: nothing was square

The kitchen sat within a larger renovation of a freehold house, and the existing structure was not cooperative. The walls were out of square and several junctions met at different angles.

In a kitchen finished in painted timber, that gets absorbed by scribes and shadow gaps. In one finished in large-format stone with minimal joints, it does not. Every assumption of a right angle would carry straight through into the fabrication drawings, and a wrong assumption there becomes an uneven gap or a visibly misaligned run, in a material that cannot be trimmed on site.

So the space was surveyed and drawn as it actually was rather than as it was meant to be, and every junction was resolved on paper before anything was cut.

The island

The island is the centre of the room and does most of the work: a surface-mounted hob, a concealed pop-up socket, and a broad uninterrupted preparation area, all within a single stone surface.

Combining the three was mainly a fabrication problem. The hob and the socket both needed cut-outs positioned precisely within the slab, with enough material left around each opening to keep the stone sound, while still preserving the run of clear worktop the client had asked for. Those positions were fixed in the fabrication drawing rather than worked out on site.

The stone wraps the island on every face rather than stopping at the worktop, so the whole volume reads as one solid piece instead of a surface sitting on a cupboard.

The rear run

Along the rear wall, the worktop, splashback and sink were designed as a single composition roughly 2.2 metres wide rather than three separate elements that happen to meet.

The same Yamuna marble runs across all of it. Slabs were matched so the veining stays continuous where surfaces meet: across the worktop, up into the splashback, and around exposed edges and returns. The eye reads one piece of stone folded through the space rather than a set of components.

The stone-clad sink

The sink was the most demanding detail in the kitchen. Rather than a stainless steel or ceramic bowl dropped into a cut-out, the stone continues into and around the sink so it reads as part of the worktop itself.

A detail like this has no tolerance in it. It meant coordinating the sink dimensions, the waste position, the internal falls needed for drainage, the edge returns, the stone junctions and their silicone joints, the support beneath the stone, and the alignment between the sink and the splashback behind it. Each one was resolved in drawing before anything went to fabrication.

Done properly, it disappears. That is the entire point of it.

Running the job

I took this from space plan through to final styling: the technical drawings, contractor coordination, fabrication liaison, site supervision and the budget.

The client was not present on site, which put more weight on communication. Decisions that would normally be made by walking someone through the space had to be made from drawings and photographs, and made early enough to keep fabrication moving.

The kitchen was installed in approximately one month, inside a live wider renovation of the house.

The result

The finished kitchen is quiet. The stone reads as one continuous surface, the sink barely registers as a separate object, and the joints sit where they were drawn.

None of that is visible as effort, which is the intention. The irregular geometry, and the fabrication work that resolved it, are only apparent if you know to look.