FOR THE LOVE OF KITCHENS – A KITCHEN BUILT ON DETAILS
15th October 2021
Can you believe it, we’re over halfway through our recaps of For The Love Of Kitchens, the episodes just seem to be flying past! This week we once again return to Cornwall, but can you blame us, it really is one of the most beautiful parts of the UK. And we get to follow along with the coolest couple, Becca and Damien, who we first met on Instagram when they DM’d our founder, Paul, asking for kitchen tips. Back then Becca and Damien were living in a 40ft aluminium Silver Streak from the 1980s, but have now made the move to a bricks and mortar home, a 19th century Cornish cottage no less, and added another young addition to their family.
Damien and Becca share their journey with deVOL.
Damien runs the UK’s first standalone zero waste barbershop, so both he and Becca were keen to have a kitchen that fit with their eco-credentials. For them, there really was only one choice, the Sebastian Cox Kitchen. This range uses only the most sustainable British beech and ash, felled using a technique called coppicing. The cupboards themselves also incorporate many traditional craft techniques and designs, such as weaving and sliding dovetail joints, and a rough bandsawn finish. The final look is undeniably rustic but with an urban luxe to it too.
Sebastian Cox explains coppicing and his design ethos.
We first met Seb back in 2015 when he was still a young designer who was drying his timber in the workshop toilet with a fan heater! Now he’s a well-established and respected woodman with his own mill shop and several collections with Terence Conran and the uber stylish home store Heals. It’s amazing to think that deVOL went from selling simple pine kitchens to creating four different kitchen ranges and fostering new talented designers and bringing their work to a global stage!
Paul reflects on how deVOL’s designs have changed over the years.
But the kitchen isn’t the only special part of Becca and Damien’s home! Here at deVOL we think the little details are just as important as the big pieces of furniture and this week we got to take a closer look at one of Paul’s favourite accessories, our handmade Metal Light Switches. Inspired by old Bentley and WWII Spitfire dashboards, each switch is hammered, sanded, soldered and aged by hand in our little metal studio at Cotes Mill.
Paul shares his favourite deVOL accessory!
Alongside their rustic Sebastian Cox kitchen, Becca and Damien also chose to have a Curiosity Cupboard from our Shaker range. We love when our customers experiment and mix our ranges together to tell a unique and personal story in their kitchen. And part of telling a story is picking the right colours for your space. It might sound straightforward, but we know that picking shades for your kitchen can be one of the hardest parts of the design process. So with this in mind, Helen and Paul headed to one of our favourite parts of London for a bit of colour inspiration. Tucked away in the quiet backroads of Spitalfields you can find Fournier Street, Wilkes Street and Princelet Street. These three connecting terraces of 18th century homes are considered to be some of the most important and best-preserved collections of early Georgian domestic townhouses in Britain. Settled in by French Huegenots working in the silk trade, each building features its own rich colour scheme and quirkily grand windows and shutters.
Helen chats about how to choose a colour for your kitchen.
We have one more stop before I get to reveal Becca and Damien’s finished kitchen, a fabulous purple Sebastian Cox kitchen in rural Sussex. The owner, Laura, rebuilt the whole house and the adjoining barns from flint and other local natural resources, and so for her, it was really important to choose a kitchen that placed the same value on sustainable and beautiful materials. She also loved how the woven back of the pantry and wall cupboards felt like a subtle nod to the history of crafts, and particularly weaving, in Sussex. The finished result is a kitchen that feels moody and atmospheric and cosy, with just a hint of glamour from the huge copper-topped island in the centre.
So now for the final reveal… After much agonising over colour and several months living with a creaky pine kitchen, Becca and Damien’s Sebastian Cox furniture was delivered. For us, there’s nothing more fulfilling than making and designing kitchens, and so it’s really lovely to see people who share this, albeit slightly geeky, love of design. I couldn’t help but smile seeing Becca and Damien get so excited as their deVOL cupboards were brought into their house, it really does make all the hard work everyone puts in here so worth it. Helen added a finishing touch of some simple pared-back styling, et voila… the coolest kitchen for a young creative family.
If you’re looking to include a little sustainable ‘Cornish cool’ into your kitchen, we’ve got you covered!
B E C C A & D A M I E N ‘ S K I T C H E N D I R E C T O R Y
Range – The Sebastian Cox Kitchen and The Real Shaker Kitchen (Curiosity Cupboard)
Sebastian Cox Cupboard Colour – Natural
Curiosity Cupboard Colour – Clerkenwell Blue (Interior) & Printer’s Black (Exterior)
Worktops – Stave Oak and Aged Copper (tap insert)
Handles – Copper finger pulls and bar handles (Only available as part of a full Sebastian Cox kitchen)
Tap – deVOL Aged Brass Ionian Tap
Sink – Ceramic Butler’s Sink
Oven – Rangemaster
Flooring – Ca’Pietra ‘Malborough Terracotta Brick’
Switches – deVOL Oval Toggle Switches
Brass Rail – deVOL Aged Brass Hanging Rail
Peg Rail – deVOL Oak Peg Rail
And that’s the end of another episode, what did you think? If you’d like to watch the whole episode, or simply re-watch the entire series head over to discovery+ or the Magnolia Network, and if you need help watching the show, be sure to check out my guide with all the information you need to get streaming!
