Month: August 2015

Victorian Subway Style

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We absolutely love these images sent over to us from a recent customer. This beautiful kitchen extension in Surrey offered an amazing space with dramatic high ceilings, something that our clients were really keen to take full advantage of and really emphasise. Crisp, clean subway tiles really offer a classic vintage feel to this impressive room.

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The cabinetry is painted in The Little Greene Companies Gauze- Dark and offers a lovely cool finish perfectly paired with smart polished chrome cup and knob handles and a traditional bead to frame.

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This kitchen is testament to picking a couple of key elements and really sticking to your guns. The overall effect is simple, clean and calming. We can’t wait to come and take some more shots soon.

Off to pastures new…

The Team

It’s quite a sad time for us here in The Old Steam Mill as we have to wave goodbye to our brilliant workshop guru James. James walked in here one year ago looking for a job and we snapped him up there and then. Visiting the U.K with his lovely fiance Mel the pair had chosen Brighton to live for their year-long overseas experience.

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James at our christmas party, silly hats essential!

 

It has been a real pleasure working with James and he will certainly be missed amongst the team. It was quite a regular occurrence that we would find him in the workshop over the weekend creating some wonderful piece of furniture, he even hand crafted our loo roll holder from solid oak… a must in any wood workshop!

 They popped in to give us all a beautiful Bonsai tree for the office. Thank you guys, we promise to take good care of it.

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Sadly all good things must come to an end and we wish you both all the very best in your new life together back in New Zealand. Make sure you send us plenty of wedding photos come the spring!

Revisiting a Beautiful Barn Conversion

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We have just had the pleasure of visiting one of our previous customers and their kitchen. One year in and they have really grown into their new barn extension, using soft colours to bring plenty of light into the room and highlighting the original old rustic beams with industrial pieces such as their stained oak and metal bar stools.

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We love revisiting our customers and taking some photos of their kitchen once they have had time to settle into their new home. We often bring a big box or two full of props to dress the kitchens for photo-shoots. But this time we hardly brought anything out as it was already so perfectly finished already. Just a few pieces from the cupboards, a couple of figs and a handful of turnips sufficed.

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This happy customer picked a lovely soft off-white shade to offer a warm feel to this large room. The Little Greene Companies’ Tusk worked perfectly to throw light around the room without being cold or too contemporary.

They also picked out some gorgeous pewter handles to compliment and finish the cabinetry. These work wonders in marrying the industrial elements together within the room.

We can’t wait to pop by and visit again sometime soon!

Going Green…

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Green is one of my favourite colours, were lucky to be surrounded by lush greens here in the old steam mill. In fact our show kitchen and front doors are all various shades of The Little Greene Company’s selection of greens.

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Colours are always a hard choice for our clients when it comes to selecting shades for their new kitchen. That’s why we offer a comprehensive colour consultation to help make those all important decisions.colour_blog_2

Green is a popular option, particularly in country kitchens teamed with rustic oak work surfaces and traditional ceramic hardware.

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Its amazing where you find inspiration for colours and textures to incorporate around your home. We recently took a trip to Devon where we made a trip to Hartland Abbey and Gardens. A beautiful Abbey just off the North Devonshire coast was built in 1157 and is well worth a visit. The walled gardens made for a great afternoon out in between beach trips and proved to be a great source of green-spiration!

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I’ve wanted to visit Hartland Abbey since I found a collection of beautiful interior shots taken by photographer Ingrid Rasmussen in the essential coffee table book New Country Style England. The interior didn’t disappoint although the gardens were certainly the highlight.

We also managed to find time to stop for tea and cake, where we were joined by a suitably colourful cockerel. I think that these red doors are just his colour!

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Many hands make light work.

The Team, , , , , ,

We are very lucky to have a fantastic team of talented people busy at work here in The Old Steam Mill. We have been on the hunt for lovely skilled people to join our ever-growing team and we have certainly been very lucky in finding some gems!

We really do value the creative values our designers, joiners, finishers, painters, finishers and installers all share and everyone here knows our individual manufacturing process from start to finish. We love it when our clients come and visit their new kitchen in production here in our West Sussex mill and meet the men and women who put their time and attention into each handcrafted kitchen. photo 1

Here is the lovely Rachel, busy hand painting our doors.

We quite often ask our designers to try finishing or our painters to spend a day in the workshop so each member of our team has a full understanding of our kitchens construction as well as the time and attention to detail required in each and every stage.

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Kevin, hard at work finishing doors in the assembly shop.