The original kitchen in this lovely house in Gloucester was truly tiny. By the time I went to measure the kitchen it had already been extended but the new room is long and narrow ... with double doors out into the conservatory.

The new kitchen was to be more of a sociable space, to include a fairly large table and, hopefully, a range cooker ... but the working areas of the kitchen really needed to be confined to the same tiny space as taken up by the original kitchen.

The narrow end wall (at the kitchen end) was used almost entirely for storage. Part of this was in the form of shallow open shelves ... because the door from the hallway also opens back onto this area. Another large part was in the form of a housekeeper's cupboard top ... one of my favourite units. It's like a dresser but with doors opening directly onto the worktop. This allows small appliances to be used inside the cupboard, whilst also providing quite a lot of shelf space.

A peninsular area; shallow in depth front to back ... but quite wide ... was used to provide sufficient worksurface to the right of the Belfast sink.

The range cooker was not only fitted in, but was given a false mantel surround, which blended into the wall nib and beam (an inevitable legacy in many extended rooms); helping to unify the room as a whole.

Another unifying feature was the dresser at the opposite end of the room. The paint finish on the dresser is the same as that on the kitchen units but it has a timber worktop which matches the table and gives that end of the room a warmer feel than the dark granite at the working end. The timber floor runs all the way through, though, ensuring that the kitchen end doesn't look too cool.

An extra touch, to tie the two ends of the room together, was the pale blue paint on the back panels of both the dresser and the housekeeper's cupboard.

The photos of the kitchen were sent to me by the owners (thank you very much) with this message:

"We are really pleased with the end result. Not only does it work well and look fantastic, but it's unusual in ways we could never have come up with ourselves"

It's great when clients are really pleased with their kitchen ... although I have to say that part of the reason the room looks fantastic is because they've done a wonderful job with the accessories!