Memoir
For my sins, I married a kitchen designer. My husband often laments the fact that people think designing a kitchen is just about putting boxes in a room. He says: “Every kitchen is different.” “Every client is different.”
Over the decades, he has gained vast tacit knowledge from designing thousands of kitchens. He has noticed the little things that no one else pays attention to: drawer handles hitting radiators, doors that are too wide to squeeze past when fully opened. Details are not details. They make design.
I am in awe of his mastery of color and texture, the clever ways he mixes and matches. In another life, he would have been Yves Saint Laurent, casually throwing together a silk blouse and a tailcoat, effortlessly creating masterpieces on the runway. Instead, he combines rose-colored doors with porcelain subway tiles... placing a curve here to soften the outline, pulling the countertop to the side to create a slight asymmetry, and then voilà.
When he designed the kitchen for our home, he persuaded me to let him use smoked charcoal cabinets with walnut veneer interiors, paired with dark granite and leather textures. The stone is filled with waves of white and orange, these waves spread like cream over the black rock, echoing the sugary white interior of the chandelier hanging above. He painted the walls almost black and covered the floors with black slate.
I said: “I don’t live in a dark box.”
He replied: “Trust me.”
It was magnificent.
Of course, if you ask him about kitchens, he will tell you about building codes, functional forms, and the practicality of ergonomics. But his genius lies in the things he cannot articulate. The way light comes through the windows and illuminates the fruit bowl. The feeling of fingers on stone engraved with linen. The paint color identical to the North Sea in August.
The details that make the difference between the ordinary and the extraordinary. This is his gift, and it is a gift he gives to his clients.
My grandmother often said that beautiful things have a halo effect.
She explained: “When a lady wears a lovely dress, people don’t say 'that dress is beautiful'. They say 'that woman is beautiful'.”
A well-designed interior evokes the same emotion. Living in the rooms he creates makes me feel more, in a way that is hard to define in words. More alive, more inspired, perhaps more myself. It’s not just about creating a visually appealing space; it’s about crafting an environment that resonates with the soul. True luxury is not just about wealth and opulence; it’s about creating a place that elevates the spirit.
When you walk into a room he has designed, you don’t just see the beauty of the space - you feel it. As if the walls themselves exude a quiet confidence, a sense of grace and elegance that takes your breath away.
In the end, it’s not just about living in a beautiful room. It’s about living a beautiful life.
In his hands, this beauty is evident, tangible, and completely transformative. “Boxes in a room” doesn’t even begin to describe it.
Anyway, there are some things that make up a kitchen.
- Your children will blow out birthday candles at the table.
- You will sit on bar stools and clink champagne glasses after well-deserved promotions.
- Simple chairs where you can relax with a book and watch the rain run down the window on a gray autumn afternoon.
He designed all these things, and more, with a taste that has been considered, not just glamorous.
“The most important thing about a place is who is in it.”
This is the mantra that guides his hand as he sketches and re-sketches each design, seeking the grace of his muse to find the perfect balance between beauty and practicality. Looking at his work, I am convinced he must have his own private angel whispering in his ear.
But the fact is, design is only half the equation. A house is a dialogue between the person who designs it and the people who live in it.
“You can design and create, and build the most wonderful place in the world. But people need to make the dream a reality.”
His work is like that of a couturier - wrapping the room in measuring tape, dispersing the most introverted desires of the clients, and making everything fit as perfectly as a Savile Row suit. But there is always a human proportion in design, a promise that can only be realized by those who live within it.
In the end, this is why a kitchen is more than just a box: fundamentally, living in a kitchen is also about the people.
