A tour of the most-copied kitchen of the decade
Open shelves, one bold colour, and a long table instead of an island. How one small kitchen ended up in thousands of homes.
IV
Ines Varga
Design editor
The photograph went round the internet in 2019: a narrow kitchen with open oak shelves, a single wall painted deep yellow, and a long wooden table where the island would usually be. Since then, versions of it have appeared in countless homes, rental listings and furniture catalogues.
We visited the original, still lived in by the family it was designed for, to find out why it works, and what copies usually miss.
We designed it for a family of five in a narrow house. Now it is in studio flats.
What makes the original work
The table is the right height for both eating and chopping, so it replaces the island rather than competing with it.
Open shelves hold only everyday things, so they never look cluttered.
The yellow wall faces the window and bounces warm light into a dark room.
Every cupboard below the counter is a drawer, which is easier to use than doors.
What copies miss
Most copies keep the look and lose the logic. Yellow walls end up on the wrong side of the room. Shelves are crowded with decorative objects. Tables are too low to work at. The kitchen photographs well and then frustrates the people who cook in it.
The architect’s advice for anyone tempted: copy the thinking, not the colour. Start by asking where the light comes from and what you actually use every day.
Copy the thinking
The family who live in the original kitchen are amused by its fame. They have changed very little in seven years: the yellow has been repainted once, the shelves hold the same plates, and the table has gained a few more scratches.
Their own advice is to decide first how you actually use a kitchen. Do you cook every night or twice a week? Do people gather while you cook, or do you prefer to be alone? Is the room bright or dark? The answers should decide the shelves, the colour and the table, not a photograph.
A kitchen that works for the people in it will look good in its own way. Theirs happened to look good in a photograph too, which, as the architect says, was a lucky accident rather than the goal.
“We designed it for a family of five in a narrow house. Now it is in studio flats.”
— Ines Varga
IV
Written by
Ines Varga
Ines writes about furniture, homes and the slow craft of getting objects right. She trained as an interior architect and still sketches every chair she reviews.
