Two materials, used with conviction. A violet-veined marble and a dark walnut, and almost nothing else in the room to argue with them.
The decisions
Stone this strong only works if you commit to it. Used as a worktop alone it looks like an upgrade. Taken up the wall as a full-height splashback and wrapped down the ends of the island, it stops being a surface and becomes the room.
The island is book-matched, which means the slab is cut and opened like a book so the vein mirrors across the join. It is the detail that separates a stone island that reads as one piece from one that reads as two slabs pushed together, and it has to be decided at the point the slab is selected rather than at fitting.
The walnut is the counterweight. Dark, close-grained and flat-fronted, it takes the temperature out of the marble and gives your eye somewhere to rest. Handleless throughout, so there is no hardware competing with the vein.
Lighting
Every shelf and niche in the tall run is lit from within. With the main lights off the joinery glows and the marble goes quiet, and the room turns into somewhere you would sit with a drink rather than somewhere you cook. A kitchen that only works with the big light on is a kitchen that is finished at six o’clock.
Details that matter
- Book-matched island, selected from the slab rather than ordered from a sample
- Full-height stone splashback with no upstand joint
- Aged brass tap and a single stone sink, so the working area stays one material
- Concealed coffee station behind pocket doors, open at breakfast and shut by nine
