How would you make this cobbish kitchen?

[MarkH]

In our hunt for something that sits rightly(?) in our open plan house we chanced upon this style of kitchen:

 

 

 - and I'm considering the options as far as building something like it goes. We might not go quite as chunky as the above but the general idea feels like it might sit well in our house with our thick walls and heavy oak beams visible...

 

Has anyone made something like this? Any thoughts on a good method of construction?

[Jeremy Harris]

A friend made a kitchen many years ago using brick, with timber doors and a timber worktop.  Not to hard to build, and if you wanted a look like the one pictures then you could do something similar with rendered/plastered block, I should think.

 

At the caving club I used to be a member of we cast very large work surfaces from concrete, just making up in-situ shuttering.  Not too hard to do, there was more work making the shuttering than casting the concrete.  It did suffer badly from staining, though, so the top and edges were eventually clad with stainless steel.

[Nickfromwales]

A table saw, some inch plywood, and some reasonable understanding of the jointing and spacing required and away to go. 

Rustic 'bark-still-visible' oak shelves and boards are readily available, even B&Q sell them, so you can mix reclaimed and bought materials to complete the look. 

How good are you with a saw and router?

[Ferdinand]

Have you determined your material?

 

That is concrete done in situ.

 

What about rendered or painted breeze block and a hunky-chunky wooden worktop?

 

Londonerati would pay 10k for that. At least.

 

Or get the counter from a defunct butcher in a right-on area for the worktop.

 

We had one of those once. 4 big men put it in the small Simca van sticking out, and the only way we could unload it at home was to tie it to a tree and drive away.

 

Or the slate from a snooker table (often 1" thick).

 

My other favourite is stainless steel units from commercial kitchens (bankruptcy auctions). They have an industrial but glamorous look that is very attractive.

 

F

Edited May 9, 2017 by Ferdinand

[MarkH]

Thanks for the thoughts.

 

Cast concrete seems overkill, ply maybe the opposite although inch thick would give solidity. Maybe rendered/painted blocks would be the one... 100mm might be too chunky though.

 

6 minutes ago, Nickfromwales said:

Rustic 'bark-still-visible' oak shelves and boards are readily available, even B&Q sell them, so you can mix reclaimed and bought materials to complete the look. 

How good are you with a saw and router?

 

When we cleared the plot there was a previously felled oak which we had slabbed down and which has been clamped and drying for 18 months now, it has great grain. We like wood but probably need to be careful we don't go wood-crazy.

 

 

 

[Jeremy Harris]

If you wanted thinner verticals than rendered block, then you could make up custom moulds from shuttering ply and cast reinforced concrete panels.  With a bit of care you might well end up with a good enough finish to just paint. 

 

Many years ago I knew a bloke that made concrete staircases, at Devoran, in Cornwall.  They used plate glass moulds to make stair treads that were as smooth as polished marble, very impressive to see, and showed how versatile concrete can be, given a bit of imagination.

 

Concrete is a cheap way to do stuff like this, all the work is in making the moulds, which could be quite time consuming.  You can fix concrete panels together by just drilling them and using something like inset anchor bolts, then filling over the bolt head recesses before the final finish.

Edited May 9, 2017 by JSHarris

[Ferdinand]

I think if I was doing a "rustic + wood worktop" kitchen, the I would make sure the worktop overhang was 50mm+ to give me the opportunity to completely change the finish by putting something on top of the breezeblocks at least twice without demolishing it first.

 

It would be wonderful to use your own oak, which I think would be OK (check) - get a man and a minimill in to plank it for you if it is large enough, or have someone take it away.

Ferdinand

 

Edited May 9, 2017 by Ferdinand

[Onoff]

Ply...use it as shuttering for the concrete!

[Nickfromwales]

2 hours ago, Nickfromwales said:

A table saw, some inch plywood, and some reasonable understanding of the jointing and spacing required and away to go. 

Rustic 'bark-still-visible' oak shelves and boards are readily available, even B&Q sell them, so you can mix reclaimed and bought materials to complete the look. 

How good are you with a saw and router?

That was reference to the framework not the finish . 

Stainless mesh or cement / render board atop to accept a cementitious product or even brick slips. 

[MarkH]

2 hours ago, Ferdinand said:

 

It would be wonderful to use your own oak, which I think would be OK (check) - get a man and a minimill in to plank it for you if it is large enough, or have someone take it away.

 

It's already planked and been drying for a while. And really nice wood. Most of the tree was logged and left to rot by a previous owner, such a waste.

[Ferdinand]

37 minutes ago, MarkH said:

 

It's already planked and been drying for a while. And really nice wood. Most of the tree was logged and left to rot by a previous owner, such a waste.

 

I think the issue with wooden worktops is a hard finish and be clear how you are handling food prep ... hygienic wood or chopping boards etc, which might enable a slightly softer finish. We had a softwood + polyurethane worktop for a few years when I were a lad ... not really a success as the surface was too soft.

 

Oak goes like iron, of course.

 

I worry about low-impact people in yurts or roundhouses in the woods who use too many secondhand scaffold planks etc. I trust they do not them for worktops, but they have all sorts of 'orrible stuff that has been absorbed into them.

 

You could go really trad and eat off trenchers .

 

Quote

The Middle Ages, Everyday Life in Medieval Europe, by Jeffrey L. Singman, (Sterling publishers) offers the following observation: "The place setting also included a trencher, a round slice of bread from the bottom or the top of an old loaf, having a hard crust and serving as a plate. After the meal, the sauce-soaked trenchers were probably distributed to servants or the poor. Food was served on platters, commonly one platter to two diners, from which they transferred it to their trenchers."

 

Edited May 9, 2017 by Ferdinand

[MarkH]

I've been looking at bartop epoxy-based finishes for wood, I think they're food safe when properly cured and very tough. 

[Nickfromwales]

The ply skeleton will make fixing things like drawer runners a breeze. 

[ToughButterCup]

9 hours ago, MarkH said:

In our hunt for something that sits rightly(?) in our open plan house we chanced upon this style.

[...]

Has anyone made something like this? Any thoughts on a good method of construction?

 

Love the style. That floor will be Hell to clean

[Trw144]

We had a concrete finished/effect table made - basically it's a skim coat on top of a wooden base. Looks to me how that kitchen has been made

[MarkH]

40 minutes ago, recoveringacademic said:

 

Love the style. That floor will be Hell to clean

Yeah I'm not fussed about the floor either, it's the cupboard/unit part that's interesting.

[MarkH]

2 minutes ago, Trw144 said:

We had a concrete finished/effect table made - basically it's a skim coat on top of a wooden base. Looks to me how that kitchen has been made

Ok. Thanks. I might have to do an experimental cube or something.

[Onoff]

Has that not maybe been Venetian plastered? Can't really tell but it would look the dog's danglies! Not so sure it would be a good work surface though.

[Trw144]

This is the guy ....

 

https://www.houzz.co.uk/pro/danielpolishedconcrete/daniel-polished-concrete

 

He will skim anything onsite for you - can't remember the exact price, something like £100 a m2. You can buy the stuff yourself if you fancy having a god yourself. Think it might be called Micro-Crete 

[MarkH]

We've homed in on something called 'tadelakt' as a possible finish, anyone heard of it?

[Gone West]

12 hours ago, MarkH said:

We've homed in on something called 'tadelakt' as a possible finish, anyone heard of it?

A friend coated some of her floor using Tadelakt which she did herself and it looked great. It would be beyond me to do it myself, I'm not at all artistic.