This renovation of an old church tested the scale of human endurance for this passionate husband-and-wife team. Both had full-time jobs, and the husband aimed to build the kitchen himself by attending joinery night classes. When complete, the church would have multi-purposes, including a new home for the couple, bed-and-breakfast accommodation, and a function space for hire.
Name: Margaret Young
Occupation/Role: Kitchen Designer – MY Designs
Project Title: Divine Intervention
Brief Overview of the Project: My involvement in this project was to design a kitchen with scullery in a renovation from Church to a home/venue space for hire/bed & breakfast accommodation place. The kitchen was entered into the 2023 NKBA (NZ Kitchen & Bathroom Association) Excellence in Design Awards. It won the Visual Impact Award and also won the Southern Chapter Category. The project also featured in Stuff.co.nz’s Kitchen of the Week.
Wish List:
My Role:
I remember vividly that wintry July afternoon in 2017 when I visited the church and met this pair of intrepid renovators who were keen to show me around. As I gingerly shuffled along scaffolding planks and climbed (un)godly heights, I tried very hard to visualise beyond the broken leadlight window panes, crumbling brickwork and a gaping hole in the roof.
Service pipes grew out of concrete slab poured soon after the clients had laboriously shovelled barrow loads of dirt to level out the original sloping floor. A framework of I-Beams was erected in place, so the stage was set to imagine how a kitchen would sit in this unique space. Both had an aptitude for design and combining old elements with new – hence the butcher’s block, set in an old wood press, made at evening class.
I would consider their tastes slightly eccentric. For example, they wanted to colour-match the island sink to the blue oven interior – timely for them that IKON had just launched their custom coloured sinks!
I added two stand-alone drawer units in the scullery – ‘mini-me’ islands positioned to be visible through the two archways leading into the area, enticing the viewer with a hint that there was more to see behind the brick wall. I added a ‘mini-me’ frame around the scullery appliance cupboard, repeating the kitchen’s framed theme.
Panels to the front-facing side of the island are sliding to access the service switches.
There were no plans for the Church which made drawing this unconventional space was more challenging.
Usually, alarm bells would ring if a client wanted to DIY their kitchen, but I felt reassured knowing he was well supported by the tutor, previously the foreman of a high-end joinery firm. He had the knowledge and the connections in the kitchen industry.
Corian was the ideal material to shape the angled legs seamlessly, leaving no visible joins whatsoever on any surface. The benchtop fabricator required further 3D-generated drawings to fully understand how the faceted surfaces were orientated.
It was quite an uplifting – almost religious – moment to finally see this finished labour of love.