‘I’ve had lots of clients who have said, “We want to move the kitchen from the lower ground floor to the ground floor,”’ muses Patrick Williams of Berdoulat Interior Design and author of The House Rules. ‘Firstly you may not be able to, especially if it’s a listed building, but also it is often nicer to keep it there, especially if it has always been there historically.’
As an interior designer well-versed in working with period buildings and restoration projects, Patrick may be quick to extol the virtues of a lower ground kitchen but the reality is that it can be a hard sell. Often associated with being dark and dingy, it is little surprise many homeowners want to relocate it to a more light-filled space at the earliest opportunity. Yet, when handled thoughtfully, a lower-ground kitchen can be one of the most characterful rooms in the house.
Patrick’s idea of working with the architecture sits at the heart of a successful lower-ground kitchen. But he accepts there can be challenges. ‘The biggest is light and the second is ceiling height, or lack of it. The third is to do with flow and use,’ he says. While interior designers often advise to use darker paint colours when decorating spaces lacking in natural light, Patrick believes it is worth bucking the trend in this instance. ‘I would be inclined to use a light colour on expansive spaces like the walls and ceiling but if you want to introduce colour, you can do so through the woodwork – doors, cabinetry, skirting,’ he says.
Adele Lonergan, co-founder of Chelsea-based studio Covet Noir, agrees. ‘Our preference is to keep everything fresh in tone,’ she says. ‘For a recent project we used Myland's Holland Park, which is a nice, creamy neutral. People often assume neutral means plain white but that often looks stark and cold. I would always go for a white with a yellow undertone, which is warmer.’
A neutral backdrop also helps if you have a penchant for bold hues. ‘It is better to layer in colour through the cabinetry and furnishings,’ suggests interior designer Laura Parkinson, founder of London-based studio Palmer & Stone, who herself moved her kitchen to the lower ground floor during a renovation of her east London townhouse. True to her word, she painted her cabinets Farrow & Ball’s Salon Drab, a chocolate brown and the woodwork Mouse’s Back, a grey brown. ‘I am able to have artwork, a sky blue coffee table and loads of different textiles because we've given ourselves like a calm base to lay on,’ she explains.
Chef and author Melissa Hemsley balanced out the light constraints of her lower-ground kitchen by painting her cabinets bright yellow. ‘The kitchen in my last home was huge and full of light, and it was tempting to move this kitchen upstairs, but there is something about having a cosy kitchen which really feels right for this house,’ she says. The adjoining dining room is wrapped in botanical wallpaper. ‘It felt like the right place to have something really bold,’ Melissa adds.
The choice of materials also has a big impact on how the space feels. Reflective surfaces such as stone worktops and metal finishes can help bounce light back in the room. ‘What I find really useful is wall and ceiling paint that has some sheen,’ says Laura. ‘People are often afraid of using that but it is a good way of making a room feel taller.’ Interior designer James Thurstan Waterworth recommends taking advantage of the fact that lower-ground kitchens usually have direct access to the garden. ‘We have used some lovely slabs in the kitchen which we continued outside. It meant there was flow between inside and outside and therefore made the space feel much bigger.’
Visual weight also matters. Too much cabinetry can quickly feel oppressive. ‘We try to stick to low-level cabinets where we can, particularly when the ceiling heights are limited,’ says James. Adele takes a similar approach, avoiding ‘huge, imposing wall cabinets’ in favour of a mix between storage and display. ‘Obviously you need tall cabinetry but it is important to balance that with the relief of an open shelf or a glazed upper cabinet,’ she says.
One of the most effective ways to keep an uncluttered lower ground kitchen is to move the practical elements elsewhere. ‘We often turn awkward dark corners into pantries,’ notes James. Patrick agrees. ‘If you can get appliances into a separate space, it means the kitchen can breathe and can be furnished in the same way as a living room or a bedroom, with proper pieces of furniture whose proportions aren't dictated by dishwashers and fridges. If you can't do that, it often works to siphon off part of a space with, say, a glazed screen.’
Artificial lighting is usually needed but subtlety is key. 'I didn't want spotlights as they can be too harsh,’ says antique dealer Will Green who has a lower floor kitchen pantry and dining area in his Northamptonshire home. ‘Instead we have two pendant lights coming down very low, creating a small pool of light above a table rather than flood lighting the whole space.’
Adele emphasises the importance of layering different lights. ‘We like a mix of decorative lighting, so wall lights and pendant lights,’ she says. ‘In a kitchen diner, we would generally prefer to have the pendant over the dining table rather than the island. We wouldn’t do both as that would be visually quite busy.’
Finally, a successful lower ground kitchen should never feel like a separate entity, says Adele. ‘In one of our recent projects we had the same chocolate brown herringbone floor running throughout the entire house,’ she says. ‘ It’s a nice visual cue that keeps things harmonious and cohesive. It is important to remember that no matter where the kitchen is, the house always needs to work as a whole.’
