The Liphook Shaker

This shaker-style kitchen is practical, beautiful and designed for the growing family.

The perfect kitchen for a growing family

The Liphook shaker was designed around these key principles: spaciousness, ease of use, ample storage and practicality. This kitchen is designed to serve a growing family! This particular kitchen also has a range of appliances including an Aga, fridge, hob, oven and microwave – each with their logical place.

For storage we built several tall units along with a walk-in larder tucked in on the left-hand side so that they were not seen when anyone entered the room. To soften the end of this section we created a bookcase. Using a neutral colour palette with this layout produced an open feeling and gave a large amount of uninterrupted work surface.

The units are built to give a worn-in and homely feel. The doors are crafted with mortice and tenons and traditional solid drawn butt hinges. With a bit of Dowers magic, cushion-close doors were also fitted. The drawers are all traditionally made with dovetails and all wood, built to last for the decades to come.

"Traditionally made with dovetails and solid wood, built to last for the decades to come"

Features of this kitchen

A curved plate rack

We made a template of the curved wall and then built the back of the plate rack to fit the wall. This gave an extensive plate rack for differing depths of plates.

Working around the old brickwork

We created a corner larder which features some exposed brickwork inside it. The rest of the wall was fitted with full-height units which meant this left all the rest of the kitchen to have ample space for the worktops.

The use of granite

The granite worktop around the sink is much easier to maintain than the wood. The use of the granite as an upstand and window sill is both practical and aesthetically pleasing.

Break front

The break of the base units out to the depth of the Aga helps break up what would have been a straight line. Either side of the Aga there are pan drawers to create a balanced view and useful storage.

Useful lighting

Over the Aga, we created a mantle using the shaker panel so that it blends into the wall units. Into this panel, we inserted lights to illuminate the top of the Aga. Over the two-ring (backup) hob we fitted a double-door cupboard which houses an extractor.

Craftsmanship

This ash worktop, like any wood worktop, needs to be correctly joined to work aesthetically and give the durability you expect. Rather than using a simple butt, the worktop is mitred for lasting quality.

Preserving the wood

There are two things that wood really doesn’t like: water and constant heat! Some areas of the kitchen use different materials and techniques for durability; we used granite around the sink and “breadboard ends” to allow the wood to dry out without splitting.

A bookcase with some interesting drawers

We built a bookcase in this unit which is fronted with drawers. The problem was to balance aesthetics with practicality. In the next image, you will see how we tackled this.

The solution

Simple really, we made the drawer fronts extend over the side of the bookcase. Bespoke design finds a solution again.

Hiding the electics

We needed to hide the electrics so we built a cupboard to house it all, blending into the kitchen. This keeps unsightly wiring and fuseboxes from spoiling the look and feel of the kitchen.