At the time of writing, it feels as if we are all getting over a series of lovely, cheerful events – two of which are The Chelsea Flower show, followed swiftly by the glorious Platinum Jubilee. We’re all a bit Jubileed-out now, to be honest, but we wanted to give a quick celebratory Chelsea mention to our friends at H Miller Bros, who we’ve featured before in The Kitchen Think… 

THE H MILLER BROS ALDER HEY FORAGING GARDEN 

Award-winning bespoke kitchen designers Hugh and Howard Miller, of H.Miller Bros designed the ‘Urban Foraging Station’ show garden at Chelsea Flower show in May. The garden was designed for Alder Hey’s Children’s Charity, sponsored by Project Giving Back. The garden will be transported over to Alder Hey Children’s Hospital to become a permanent garden for patients and families to enjoy and discover all year round.  

FORAGING THERAPIES 

The garden was designed to be mindful of children’s mental and physical health and the aim is to encourage engagement with nature through foraging, sharing health food, play, and being in the moment with natural surroundings. The ethos of the garden is that the child is at the centre and there’s a feast of opportunities to learn and pass on knowledge about plants and bush crafts, along with the mindfulness intrinsically promoted with some of the hand-crafted features. Designer, Howard Miller said “We were really keen to work with Alder Hey to make a garden that celebrates the amazing work they do supporting children and their families. We’re a family business, local to the hospital  and many of our family and friends have benefited from Alder Hey’s care; they’re a big part of our community. It’s a real privilege too that we can move the garden back to Alder Hey where it will become a living resource for children and medical practitioners to use for social prescribing and other informal therapies.” 

NATURAL INSPIRATION 

We’re rather keen on the new Marbling Moods kitchen from Keller Kitchens. This shows the Classic kitchen with Floating cabinets – an interesting and unusual departure from the usual floor-standing cabinets. The overall look immediately becomes more luxurious and with a ‘living room’ influence, rather than a workaday kitchen style. Shown here in walnut with green matt lacquer fronts with red copper accents. XXL cabinets are available too, click here for the new Inspiration brochure.  

HABERDASHERY STYLE FROM deVOL 

One of the highlights of Clerkenwell Design Week was the deVOL  exhibit, which featured the beautiful vintage-look Haberdashers Kitchen. The attention to detail was awe-inspiring, and very evocative, especially to anyone who enjoys mooching around antique and vintage fairs. So, it’s heartening to know that all the furniture and a beautiful selection of fitting and accessories are indeed available from deVOL. Visit the shop here for authentic vintage touches. 

Franke’s first smart cooker hood range, the AQ Sense features an Air Quality sensor that monitors for VOC levels, air temperature and humidity. It activates automatically to filter nasties and restore fresh air, and the hood itself provides updated air quality info via the Franke Cloud app. The monitor allows access to online cooking videos as well as all the usual news and music apps and so on. We can’t actually help but wonder why this hasn’t happened sooner! After all, a hood-height screen is extremely convenient, and doesn’t take up any extra precious kitchen space … 

STEEL FRAME WINDOWS FROM PERLA 

Larger kitchen-living-dining spaces can be described as open plan, or if the different areas are clearly demarcated, are often called ‘broken plan’. Whatever the term, there is an increasing appeal for room dividing screens that still allow light to flow through the space, whilst giving some provision for quieter areas. The Steel Window Association says ‘A fashionable steel screen is ideal for replacing a non-load bearing wall between the living space and kitchen. It still provides two separate rooms but does not compromise on the natural light available. Although most popular between a living room and kitchen, any two spaces can be divided with steel screens. The internal partition can be made from steel windows and steel doors to allow design flexibility combined with practical functionality. And, as door thresholds are not necessary, the finished floor can remain intact, leaving the perfect stylish passage for light to run between the two rooms’. Project above from  Perla Windows  

BRITANNIA CAST IRON COOKWARE, SAMUEL GROVES 

Tough, heavyweight cookware is a joy to use, and especially in these days of outdoor cooking and barbecues it’s nice to be able to grab a sturdy pan, secure in the knowledge it will perform well on all surfaces and heat sources. Take a look at the pre-seasoned cast iron cookware from —-. It’s manufactured using over 70% recycled material and at the end of it’s life (which won’t happen anytime soon!) it’s then 100% recyclable. This summer’s three new products are a 26cm double handle square griddle pan, a long handled version of the 26cm square model and a 45cm double burner griddle. Here’s the whole Samuel Groves Britannia collection. 

PUT THE GLASS KETTLE ON! 

Kettles seem to get overlooked these days, with the runaway success of the many boiling water taps that are installed in new kitchens. So, we were impressed and interested to hear about the new Zwilling Enfinigy  glass kettle, available in black and silver, and it’s most definitely a style statement. It’s a kettle that does everything, with 10 programmable settings, six temperature levels, and a keep warm setting – to save a few pennies if you’re a constant ‘re-boiler’! Integrated cable storage within the base stand and a loose-leaf tea insert for those who prefer a ‘proper’ cuppa! And there’s a matching  toaster available too …

PORCELAIN SUPER TILES

As we’ve mentioned previously, new kitchen planning often happens alongside exterior-outdoor-living space planning. The flow between indoors and out is important for a coherent look that is easy to live with. Porcelain tiles are a great choice to ease the transfer between indoors and out, and can make a massive difference to the exterior ambience. These are Skye Grey 2cm porcelain tiles from Porcelain Superstore, with a R11 slip rating for outdoor use.

MODERN DINING, PARIS STYLE

The choice of outdoor entertaining and dining furniture is almost as wide as the choices of indoor furniture. Pick your priorities – does it need to be stored indoors over the winter, do you have somewhere to store the cushions, will it need treating every few years (as timber furniture tends to), do you want it to stack? And so on … personally I prefer items that can be left outdoors all year round with little chance of deterioration. This  Paris 90cm Square Dining Table  in Volcano Grey from Bridgman would be very near the top of my list for a weatherproof investment buy. Add some colourful seat pads to brighten up the look, or just sit back and survey a colourful garden.

TEXTURED PALM MURAL

Add a wild streak of colour to a newly planned kitchen-dining space with the Textured Palm Mural in Olive & Rust from OhPopsi. It adds interest, texture and colour and also helps to lead the eye from indoors to outdoors.

PINEAPPLE, GINGER & LIME GIN

We rather like the sound of a new gin from Bullards; it’s the Pineapple, Ginger & Lime refreshing new flavour, created to celebrate the launch of the new Covent Garden store. We also applaud the sustainability aspect of their fabulous bottles, now termed Bottle for Life with the option of refilling using the Eco-Refill Pouch. Genius.

BESPOKE RECYCLING FROM EKO MORANDI

And finally! It’s good to see new interlocking, customisable and stylish recycling options which are nice enough to be visible in the kitchen … after all, not everyone has a utility or boot room for all those extras. These are the new EKO HOME Morandi Touch  bins, in 20, 30 and 40 litre capacities, easy to tuck under a work surface or in a corner, with touch to open operation.