Majjie's Blog

I mentioned Mark Wilkinson's new Shan Gara kitchen range in this month's newsletter. It has a dsitinct oriental flavour, which may become a theme for 2009.

Mark Wilkinson is very well known in the industry, for coming up with innovative ideas. His much copied (ssshhh ... don't tell him!) Cook's Kitchen, started the trend a few years ago, for traditional painted units with very large, stained timber knobs. His more recent styles have been less iconic (perhaps because nobody dares to copy them too closely any longer - Mr W is notoriously litigious).

These are very upmarket and very expensive kitchens and I'm sure the quality is superb ... but are they the best you can get?

Well, actually, I don't think so. I worked briefly for Jim Brookman of Brookmans Design Group ... a few years ago now. They were less well known than Mark Wilkinson Furniture, but they had similar, beautifully designed kitchens. I was seduced by the wonderful look of the furniture ... until I realised that the kitchens were sort of pre-designed. As a kitchen designer, all I had to do was make them fit. Neither I, nor the customer, had any input into choosing the handles or adding a unique character to any of the units.

If I won the lottery and wanted a really upmarket kitchen ... I'd probably still design my own and get a cabinetmaker to make it for me. But ... if I had to go for a big name ... it would be Johnny Grey Studios. I wouldn't mind working with one of their designers.

Have a look at this kitchen:

It was designed for the Showtime Metropolitan Home Showhouse in Manhattan and the prospective owner of this kitchen was Dexter, the fictional protagonist in a Showtime crime drama.

On his web site Johnny Grey says that they were trying to create something "original and sensual and fantastic, yet still make a kitchen that works?"

I love it! The end result was produced by a collaboration of different designers and craftspeople and, to me,  it gives a feeling of simultaneous energy and relaxation. I'd love a truly individual kitchen like that.

Unless you're filthy rich, though, you will have to win the lottery to have one. Johnny Grey also had a disclaimer on his site about an article that appeared in the Wealth Bulletin, saying that some bankers were paying between £500,000 and £1,000,000 for one of his kitchens. That's a ridiculous exaggeration apparently ... the starting price is only about £75,000 (unless you need a lot of building work doing). I'll have two.