Winners Of The 2021 International Design Awards

In 2021, we very proudly accepted the International Design Award for our kitchen project ‘The Bishops Stortford Kitchen’. This was monumentous achievement for us at Herringbone, as a small, Canterbury local company. We are truly grateful for the nomination and to each and every one of you who voted, or supported us for the past 7 years of Herringbone Kitchens.

The project was deigned for a lovely family in Bishops Stortford. The family were renovating an old Victorian house which had spent the last 100 years as a boarding school. Initially two houses, then split into flats and rooms, they renovated it back to a family home. As the house was split into flats, there were three kitchens, all very old and tired. As part of the renovation, the back of the house was knocked off and a larger kitchen space was built.

The couple had carried out three full house renovations prior to this one as Mairead was an interior designer before setting up her business ‘Wild Hearts Wonder’. The family wanted a spaced out designed that worked for them.

“You can’t really achieve this [a space that works perfectly for you] with an off the shelf, a walk-in pantry for example or a chimney breast in an awkward place need a bespoke finish to make the kitchen work as hard and efficiently as it can.”

They knew exactly how they wanted it and what the space would allow, but wanted to hear other ideas to see if there was anything better to add. They knew they wanted a dark shaker kitchen, with lots of brass, Mairead did want a pink Island, but lost the battle with the other half on that one! A boiling tap and a coffee machine were essential for them too and has always been included into any kitchen Mairead designed.

For their bespoke cabinetry, they went for our Westminster cabinetry range and a bold colour choice of Myland’s ‘Sinner’ as the space is so large and heavily windowed, the black doesn’t overpower the space or make it feel dark. On top of the bespoke cabinetry, sits a gorgeous Dekton worktop in the colour ‘Bergen'.

A lovely counter-top unit sits at the end of the the kitchen run, featuring reeded glass doors, three painted shelves inside housing the family’s impressive collection of glasses, stand mixer and cocktail making equipment. The gorgeous Dekton worktop flows straight into the unit acting as a cold shelf; this is so practical as any drink or batter mixture spills can be easily wiped up.

Our award sits very proudly on a shelf in our studio in Canterbury for all to see and as a reminder to us of the hard work the designers, workshop and fitters put into this project.