Kitchen, Diner, Utility and Living Room Design by YEO Design

As mentioned in earlier posts, we chose to work with YEO Design very early on after we bought Dianthus. It’s being a long journey together since we met James Yeo at their old London Showroom in East Sheen.

Needless to say, the YEO team we’ve worked with so far James Yeo, Adam Hodgson, Robert Potten, Luke Parker their back office team including Kirsty and Megan Foster have been a joy to work with. Thank You. So much so, that David Bentley our main contractor, our M&E consultants, Architect and VME our M&E sub-contractors have been raving about how brilliant the YEO team have been throughout. Guys, we love and appreciate you.

This is likely to be a long post so grab a cuppa. When we set out our brief, we wanted a multifunctional space, we love entertaining, need a space that caters for accessibility, we wanted a space that caters for inside outside living.

We’re very fortunate to have lived at our previous abode Northbrook Barn for three years. The configuration of the Barn living, kitchen diner is very similar to the layout of our Dianthus space. So, we simply imagined how we could improve on our living experience and take the best bits we loved about the Barn and apply it to Dianthus.

Working with YEO and Rob Jackson our architect, we asked that the living space be set to the right facing the meadow with a built in seating pod, bookshelves and storage to allow us put kids toys and odd bits and bobs away. We also requested that the kitchen carcasses be made from recycled materials. They’re made from recycled paper.

We went through several iterations with Adam and Robert from YEO until we finalised on the design below. I’ll add the full plan later and more photos from their workshop. I’ve asked Megan Foster from the YEO marketing team to do a guest blog of their work.

From the left, you have a seating pod, which is backlit and contains a Mural from Woodchip and Magnolia, the mural is a tropical mural called Wonderland inspired by Birds of Paradise which we love and featured at our wedding. The mural is setback and backlit so it feels like you’re sat in a window looking outside. The panelling is asymmetric with the sofa and pod in mustard finishing.

The design intent is that you draw eyes to it at night versus during the day when the meadow should take full attention. To the right of it, you have the bookshelves as we have tons of books and we love our communal bench seating. We also decided we will not have any TV in our living space that’s what the snug room is design for.

So, the seating pod and the accompanying two teal arm chairs and perhaps a coffee table that will feature in the space are designed for social connection and family interaction not spoilt by TV.

The YEO team have already installed most of the cabinetry. The final finishing is all there is left to install once the flooring treatment is complete in the next couple of weeks. By the way the underfloor heating is working as the ground source heat pump is connected and working. I’ll be honest seeing all the noise with gas prices and fuel shortages vindicates our decision to go with sustainably sourced energy. It’s awesome! I can’t wait for the batteries to be connected to the solar tiles in February when they’re delivered. Massive demand and shortage at the moment for those. We can then start to sell to the grid.

Here is what the space looks like now.

The brief for the dining space is that we love entertaining, and we didn’t want it in a separate space, but we also wanted to alternate between sitting down for dinner to hosting canapés with the doors open to the patio. Therefore, we didn’t want a fixed table configuration but required the ability to set the table vertical to the sliding doors for sit down dinner, horizontal when we are hosting a canapé evening with the doors open.

The floor itself is finished using Marmoleum. I’ll write more about that later. See the layout below. The colour we’re using is T3120 Rosato which is laid throughout and a broken plan in the middle with the T3048 Graphite. This will complement the stone that will be used for the patio finishing in a similar cream colour.

James Hyson Katie’s brother is a lighting designer, he gifted us the most amazing set of pendant lights, Basalt by Tala We’re so spoilt and so indebted to James for the lights which we love. They will feature prominently over the dining room as the feature lights. We’ve got a gorgeous table from Baobab Table By Abacus which will be complemented by Benches from YEO Design. We love benches.

Here is a render of what the final space will look like with the dining table in place as designed by Robert Potten of YEO Design.

Our experience from living at the Barn taught us that we spend most of our day working around the kitchen island with our macs. We also loved the views and wanted to maintain that connection with nature.

The kitchen features a breakfast bar starting from left, pull out drawers, ovens, more draws, french fridge freezer. The units are Richlite chocolate glacier made from recycled paper, The island hosts the induction hub and a Teppanyaki pan from Bora who also provide the down draft extractor fan that connects to the Mechanical Ventilation and Heating Recovery System.

The island also has power sockets that are buried that allows us to work there and also hosts the sink, chopping board over bins etc so you’re facing the meadow as you’re preparing food and engaging with the guests you’re entertaining.

Some folks may get stressed about cooking whilst people watch them. I don’t. I love it hence, I got the design responsibility for this space with the YEO team. The Island is made using Oak in Rubio monocoat oil plus 2c in natural same as the dining table.

The worktops are ceaserstone 4044 Airy Concrete, The lighting pendants in the bulkhead is Veronoi II Bulb Pendant All Glass. We absolutely love this space and we’re going to enjoy living here.

The island design is like a DJ cockpit whipping up a storm to folks on the dance floor. Playing my favourite Anjunabeats tunes

Given how much I love cooking Sunday roast to the family, having speakers buried in the ceiling makes it even more delightful to live and enjoy this space. Can’t wait.

We already have the mustard bar stools which are from Roche Bobois.

The latest photos of the space are below. The kitchen installation is complete some M&E connections around it. They’ve almost finished installation of the sockets and light switches in the living space and utility rooms which have also being painted with Little Greene paints.

The Bar area to the far left of the kitchen as you face the meadows has loads of space for storing bottles, glasses, wine gin etc. It backs the utility room which is going to be the most trafficked space to get in and out of the house. The Bar is made out of Eggar MFC ST9. It also features smoked glass shelving and antique mirrors. The wine Fridge is a Fisher and Pykel so is our French Fridge.

The utility room/boot room as indicated above will be the main access point for our family into Dianthus. We often go rambling around our countryside, Katie and I trail run and cycle. The kids also ride ponies so likely to be messy.

So, we requested for something that can survive a lot of trashing so we went for Corian carcasses. We also have a wash down sink in the utility space as well as ample wardrobe space to hang coats, jackets and store wellies. Finally, the coup de grace in the space is the pantry which is accessed via a pocket door. For our brief, we asked for a space that we can store dry food and bulk storage of food. The pandemic certainly taught us a lesson and we now buy a lot of food in bulk as it’s cheaper. I was allowed to specify my favourite colour for the space. Orange 😊.

Here are some of the photos. I don’t think these photos can ever do the craftsmanship of the YEO Design team justice. Needless to say, we’re very grateful for the work they’ve done and you’ll see more of that featured later with the wardrobes round the house.