Today’s adventure takes me to Letton to visit a stunning property that is surrounded by Herefordshire's rolling countryside.
The property and surroundings were absolutely stunning with beautiful cherry blossom trees, a field with sheep and the river that runs on the right-hand side of the property. Picturesque was an understatement.
However, this property has one ‘hiccup’. It floods.
The property doesn’t flood often, however because of where its location is, it does happen. 2020 was an awful year for many, the country was battling an invisible deadly disease that has sadly taken a lot of lives. However, for some lives in Herefordshire the nightmare started before COVID-19. A month or so before the country was plunged into a complete lockdown, Herefordshire flooded. By flooded we aren’t just talking a couple of inches of water, the riverbanks had burst, and reached the highest point ever recorded. Navigating a way out of Hereford was literally impossible by road, cars were left floating and carried to strange locations. Fields and crop were completely ruined. People had to leave their homes, and when (if) they could return back their belongings completely destroyed. It was a devastating time for many. And that was just the beginning of a ‘difficult’ year – understatement of the century.
Whilst our client was ‘used’ to flooding, the flood in 2020 was so severe that our client wanted to protect herself against anything like that happening again. So not only was the challenge to create a flood proof kitchen but the layout itself was a galley kitchen that has a slanting roof. So where did we start?
We started in our showroom like all of our projects. Our client saw our Milan collection and absolutely fell in love with it, along with the unique stone veneer design. In hindsight it was a brilliant choice as it worked perfectly with the kitchen design, it was clearly meant to be.
What's Milan?
Our Milan is a contemporary kitchen, similar to the concept of the German Kitchen design. Sleek flat panels, no handles and just simply minimalistic. The Milan in our showroom features a stunning slate veneered design, perfect to add a touch character to a minimalistic design. Upon seeing the slate veneer our client knew that this is what she wanted.
The striking stone veneer creates a seamless look and blends all of the pan drawers, cupboards and mini cupboards together creating an ‘easy on the eye’ design rather than a messy ‘higgledy piggledy’ look!
For the design we figured it was a bit of a nightmare to have wall cabinets within the design, so we made the choice to design the kitchen with only floor cabinets. Wall cabinets would make the kitchen feel really dark and enclosed, which is definitely not the vibe in this beautiful home that has with white walls, large glass windows and the coolest old stable door as the front door. Oh and not to forget the touches of the natural dark wooden beams (I am definitely not doing it justice!).
With a carefully thought-out combination of pan drawers, mini cupboards and normal cupboards our Lead Design, Karl, came up with a great combination to make the kitchen not only look great but user friendly.
Whilst Karl worked on the layout of the design, and getting the kitchen to not only look aesthetically great but to work for our client, Josh was busy figuring out how to make it flood proof. I am still learning all the technical jargon, so the name slips my mind, but we crafted our client’s kitchen from a waterproof material. Using this material was certainly a first for Josh and Matt, and it came with its challenges, but in the end, it all came together.
Even though all of our kitchens are fitted with technology so you can easily remove the doors, we made sure that everything was versatile and could easy been removed from the kitchen and put back without too much hassle (or the use of a screwdriver!). Now you may be thinking why would we do that if the kitchen was waterproof?
Overtime, no matter how waterproof a kitchen is, it will be affected by flooding. To avoid further cost and damage it provides a peace of mind and an extra pre-caution. By giving our client the choose to remove everything in her kitchen, it can provide a safety blanket knowing only the carcass will get wet and that no damage will occur to any of the drawers and doors. It’s also a relief knowing that the kitchen will go back together easily rather than having to fix the damaged caused as well as finding the funds to repair the kitchen and everything else broken in the storm.
Now here’s the shocker…
My visit to The Letton Kitchen was several months after it had been fitted (no thanks to the lockdowns) However, the biggest shocker of them all is that…
These photos were taken AFTER a flood had happened!
Click below to take a nosey at the photos of The Letton Kitchen post flood.
Can’t wait to share my next adventure! Check back in next week to read all about The Manuka Cottage.
Soph
X
