In Athena Calderone's Brooklyn townhouse, the kitchen is sleek and simple. She says “If you choose to eliminate upper cabinets as I did, maintain that minimal sensibility. Open kitchen shelving can easily look cluttered, so leave it airy up top. Use pale textured plaster or paint as a canvas on which decorative items can pop and functional items, like the hood, disappear. Dark lower cabinets will also recede, focusing your gaze on the pieces you’ve chosen to display.”
In the vaulted kitchen on Emma Milne-Watson's Sussex rectory, sleek Bulthaup cabinets topped with pale Carrara marble and a matching island on metal legs are next to a weathered refectory table repurposed from an old oak door.
The London home of Kerry Franses is a very calm space, and the kitchen is an minimal as they get. Kerry designed the layout of the Bulthaup kitchen herself, opting for an all-white look. The warm natural tones and textures of parquet by Oak Artisans softens the overall look.
An antique butcher’s block, sourced from Gallery BR in Tetbury, provides an interesting textural contrast with the sleek Carrara marble worktops and contemporary flat-fronted units painted in ‘Clay Pale’ from Little Greene in this London house. The symbol paintings by Manolo Ballesteros, resting on the top shelves, are also from Gallery BR.
Architect Kim Wilkie's flat is a minimalist's dream, and the kitchen's all-white units and stainless-steel worktop and sink are the 'B3' design from Bulthaup.
The kitchen in a Regency era London pied-à-terre was designed by Veere Grenney Associates. Slabs of Belgian Fossil granite have been used as work surfaces and as an elegant backdrop and shelves. The floor is antique limestone by Artorius Faber and the stools by the Danish designer Ernst Kuhn (1890-1948), recovered in Verandah by Veere Grenney Collection while the Kick hanging lights are from Jamb.
Oak finger parquet flooring adds an authentic organic contrast to the other manmade materials in the kitchen of James Shaw's Shoreditch house. While the kitchen may have a splash of colour and feature different materials, it retains a minimalist feeling.
Arabescato marble from Fontanili Marble UK is plated on the alcove wall and counter tops in the kitchen of this Victorian terrace designed by Pernille Lind. The kitchen – which is deVOL – was painted in Farrow & Ball's ‘Cord’, a soft greyish yellow to compliment a honey hued wooden floor.
The kitchen in a Kensington house by Kate Guinness, designed and made in collaboration with 202 Design, shows how colour can still be minimalist. Walls in ‘Plaster V’ contrast with cabinets in ‘Kigali’, both shades from Paint & Paper Library. The rug is from Tate & Darby and removing that element would make this a very minimalist space.
If you removed various decorative elements from this Chelsea house by Studio Duggan, it would be a calm and minimalist space. Zellige tiles on the chimney breast tone with the materials used for the cabinetry and worktops. The general feel is contemporary and light, manifested in the leathered Bianco Rhino marble countertops and handleless cabinets.
A kitchen in a Cotswolds home restored by Catherine Chichester: cupboards drawn up by the artist John Simpson are teamed with an island designed with architect Stef Claes and topped with ‘Radianz’ quartz from Granite Planet. A wall unit from Vinterior displays ceramics by Robin Walden. The tumbled limestone floor is from Beswick Stone.
A minimalist kitchen does not have to lack in colour, as this one in Nicola Mardas' house in Deal proves. Sleek cabinetry and a lack of shelving on top create a minimalist scheme, even with the use of vibrant green paint. The kitchen was designed by the architectural studio Camu & Morrison, and Nicola chose the colours. The cabinets are painted in Little Greene's ‘Woodland’, while the walls are in Farrow & Ball's ‘Middleton Pink’.
An ultra-modern and ultra minimalist kitchen in an Edwardian villa extensively renovated by William Smalley. The custom 10-metre long brushed steel worktop is made by Ottima. The space also demonstrates William’s attention to detail: each sink is exactly centred on a window and the oak-fronted cupboards align precisely with the grid of the sandstone floor. In a refreshing rejection of the current mantra that the kitchen is the heart of the home, the owner always intended it as a working space rather than a social one.