This cottage is perched on a hillside near to Matlock in Derbyshire and the owners were having an extension built to increase the size of their tiny kitchen. It was a difficult situation for the builders who thought, at one time, that they would have to use a crane to lift their building materials over the roof. Luckily it didn't come to that.

The kitchen was tricky in that it had to serve two purposes. The lady of the house is a picture framer and she wanted to be able to pursue this occupation in her new kitchen, as well as doing the normal kitchen jobs of storing food and ingredients, preparing and cooking food.

To make matters worse, there was no room for a separate utility room and the washing machine and the broom and ironing board needed to be fitted in too! Luckily the lady of the house knew exactly what she wanted and came up with lots of ideas herself.

A large peninsular unit at one end of the room serves as a work area for the picture framing and is flanked on one side by a large number of drawers for storage of all the little bits and pieces needed. The L-shaped corner cupboard under the peninsular was custom made with vertical dividers to hold the frames before use.

A dresser top on the other side of the peninsular area matches the tall drawers on the left hand side, and the shelves between the two, which are used to display china, give the look of a traditional dresser. Exactly what you’d expect to find in a cottage like this. To avoid wasting wall space on a radiator, there is a plinth heater fitted under the units in this area – you don't need cold fingers when you're framing! The large area of worktop can also be used for dishing up – or just perching for a chat.

The owners requested a cottagey feel for the furniture and didn't want the doors to be too plain, so a style with both grooved centre panels and grooved detail on the frames was chosen. This was especially important since, like a lot of cottages the ceilings were very low and the tall units were fitted directly to the ceiling without any cornice trim. For the wall units, though, cornice was squeezed in – fitting all the units to the ceiling would have made the furniture look too fitted and too modern.

To accommodate the ironing board and the broom, a tall larder cupboard was built around the wall nib from the original outside wall (a bit of wall nearly always needs to be left, to support the beam which takes the weight of the upper floors originally supported by the wall). The larder was slightly wider than the wall – leaving a little alcove at the side for the tall items. It's surprising how little space is actually needed to slot them in. An angled base unit next to the larder used up the last inch of space for storage.

The only hitch (there's always something that doesn't go quite according to plan) was that it wasn't possible to hide the washing machine behind doors, as originally intended. The extension ended up a couple of inches shorter than shown on the building plans (quite a common occurrence!) and the doors just wouldn't fit. The owners don't seem to mind though, it's tucked away next to the larder – and the rest of the kitchen looks stunning.

The made to measure units, the hand made doors and the lovely solid Iroko worktops were all supplied and fitted by Steve DeVille of DeVille Interiors.