An Olive Green Shaker Kitchen on the Coast
13th June 2024
This pretty Shaker kitchen has been on our radar for some time. Like us, you may have spotted this beautifully renovated flint-fronted house on Instagram. We were instantly struck by the olive green cupboards, swathes of marble and the panelled roof, giving the whole room a very cool and laidback seaside feel. So, when the weather finally picked up, we decided to take a trip down to the coast to take some photos and meet its lovely owner, Sam.
It’s hard to believe that this is a new extension. Originally a narrow galley with a very retro feel, Sam and her husband, Adam, knocked out the back of the house to create a wonderfully light family kitchen that felt completely in keeping with the rest of this Victorian terrace. Every detail was so carefully considered, from size and proportions to the haphazard window placements, they even used the old bricks to rebuild the back wall. I’m always so impressed when people create totally new spaces that feel as if they have always been there, so I decided to chat with Sam about the renovation, challenges, choices, and the best places to buy vintage…
“I used to walk past the house every day on our walk to school and always admired the flintwork and pretty windows. We were so lucky to be the first to view the house when it came on the market, and we put an offer in straight away. Once we saw the inside it was a done-deal; the house retained most of the original features and was in such good condition for its age, it had our hearts immediately and felt like home.”
“My husband and I are both designers and I for one am an obsessive researcher, so before we embarked on the renovation I researched architects online to find one who had a style and visual language that resonated with us. I feel very lucky to have found our talented architect (Georgina Mann) who was the perfect person to calmly guide us through the ups and downs of our first renovation. Because we had such a great team between our architect and contractor, who understood my vision for the house perfectly, I don’t have any “renovation regrets” thankfully! If I were to start all over again, I would take much the same approach – research everything thoroughly, and always try to find something second-hand (this is how we saved a lot of money on bathroom and kitchen fittings).”
“The house itself was my main source of inspiration, and its history and provenance guided a lot of my design decisions. I wanted our renovation to respect the bones of the house, and any updates we made were considered and in keeping with its architectural style and proportions. More than anything, I wanted our updates to be timeless – and that is where deVOL became the perfect partner when we were designing our new kitchen. I loved the Shaker aesthetic for its timelessness, and how through colour choices you can make it your own. deVOL’ s finishing details, such as the reeded glass and brass hardware, set them apart from other brands and at a price that was very affordable.”
“The kitchen itself is fairly narrow compared to a typical London Victorian terrace, so we had to be mindful of the space and where best to conceal the appliances while maximising storage. We could have added more cabinets in a longer run, but decided to add a fireplace as a focal point instead (where the old oven flue used to be) to add character to the entirely newly-built kitchen. We also decided to forego an overhead extractor, so as not to detract from the architectural detail of the pitched roof – this made the room feel so much lighter and airier, and we get such beautiful light reflecting in the kitchen because of this (our extractor is hidden elsewhere out of sight).”
“The marble came first, surprisingly! I used an off-cut of Breccia Vagli marble in our bathroom renovation that I had found at a local marble yard, and I immediately knew that it was what I wanted for our kitchen worktops. From there, I worked on a palette for the cabinets, using complementary colours from the marble and incorporating one of my favourite colours – olive – as it is so evocative of the English countryside (there’s nothing more English than an olive green Land Rover Defender bouncing along country roads).”
“There are a few vintage stores I always come back to; my favourite is Soap and Salvation in Rye. I also love Committee of Taste, Litten Tree Antiques and Sauce, all of whom I found on Instagram. eBay and Facebook Marketplace are always great places to source antique bits and bobs (if you know what you’re looking for) and it’s definitely worth scouring local markets and secondhand stores – that is how I found our brass towel rails, which are a perfect match for our deVOL Grand Tour Lamp! It pays to be patient – I found our antique kitchen larder cabinet after 2 years of searching, but now it is in place with deVOL’s brass hardware it looks like it was tailor-made for our kitchen.”
“I love absolutely everything about our kitchen, but most of all knowing that it has been built to last, designed with care and will be used by us (and any future inhabitants) for a very long time without needing to be replaced.”
I hope you enjoyed having a wander around and hearing more about this charming place. A big thank you to Sam for choosing deVOL and for chatting with me. You can find Sam and the rest of her inspiring home at @the_flint_house.
Take a look at our Real Shaker Kitchen collection here.
