Kitchen island with dark painted in-frame doors and a pale veined worktop that returns to the floor at one end, standing on flagstones beneath an exposed oak beam and the post that carries it.

Storrington · 2025

In-frame kitchen, Storrington

An in-frame kitchen supplied and designed by Howdens, fitted by Tennant into a period room with an oak post standing in it and a riven flagstone floor.

Town: Storrington
Property: Period property

An in-frame kitchen in Storrington, West Sussex, supplied and designed by Howdens and fitted by Tennant. The room it went into has an oak beam across the ceiling, the post that carries it standing in the middle of the floor, and large riven flagstones underfoot.

What comes in the boxes, and what does not

A supplied kitchen arrives as a set of rectangular units in standard sizes. They are made square, in a factory, to dimensions decided before anyone stood in the room.

This room is not square, and it has a post in it. Everything that reconciles those two facts happens on the day, with a saw, and none of it is in the boxes: the scribe where a plinth meets a flag that is not level, the filler that lets a run die into a wall that leans, the packing that gets a cornice straight under a beam that is not.

That is what fitting is, and on a building like this one it is most of the work. The cabinetry is Howdens’. Whether it looks like it belongs in a period room is decided by how it is put in.

The post

The post is left standing clear rather than boxed into a carcass and lost.

Everything on the plan follows from that. It fixes where the island can start and stop, and it leaves a walkway either side. A supplied run has no unit designed to die against a piece of structural oak, so the ends are made to stop cleanly and the plaster reveal is taken past the post rather than the post being swallowed.

Scribing to a floor that moves

Large riven flags are the least forgiving floor to fit cabinetry onto. They are laid to look like stone that has been walked on for a century, which means the surface moves — and a run of units set level will show every millimetre of that movement as a shadow under the plinth.

So the plinths are scribed to the stone rather than cut straight, one at a time, following the flags. It is slow, it is invisible when it is right, and it is glaringly obvious when it is not.

What was already in the room

The beams are strapped and bolted, the boarded plank doors are old, and the steel-framed glazed screens run between this room and the next.

None of that was moved for the kitchen. The cabinet lines, the cornice heights and the paint were set to sit against them instead — which is the other half of fitting a supplied range into a house that already has a character of its own.

How it went in

01

The island, and the oak it had to work around

A dark painted island under the beam, with the post that carries that beam standing clear of it. The worktop is mitred and returned to the floor at the open end.

The island seen down the room: dark in-frame doors, a pale veined worktop returning to the floor at one end, flagstones underfoot, and an oak post and beam above it. — The post stands clear of the run

The island from its open end, stools tucked under the overhang, pendants above, and the oak post rising through the worktop line beyond. — Stools under the overhang

The side of the island: deep drawers with brass-toned bar handles in a dark in-frame face, and the worktop mitred down to the floor at the corner. — Mitred down to the floor

02

The runs around it

Pale in-frame cabinetry around a dark island: a sink run under the windows, a stacked oven housing, tall cupboards, and a low bank of glazed wine fridges.

The sink run beneath a pair of windows, a deep white butler sink set under a stone worktop, with a built-in window seat and cushion continuing the line to the right. — The run carries on into a window seat

Two ovens stacked in a pale in-frame housing with drawers below and above, beside a small internal window and an old boarded plank door. — Ovens stacked, drawers under

A run of full-height pale in-frame cupboards with a cornice carried level across the top, standing between a steel-framed glazed screen and a doorway. — Cornice carried level across the top

A low bank of glazed wine fridges either side of a cupboard, with tall in-frame units above and a steel-framed screen to the left. — Glazed doors low, solid above

03

The room it went into

Flagstones that are not flat, oak beams strapped and bolted overhead, steel-framed screens and boarded plank doors that were already in the house.

Down the length of the kitchen: the island in the middle, a tall fridge housing beyond it, old boarded plank doors to the left and the sink run to the right. — The whole room, end to end

The island lengthways with pendants over it, stools along one side, the sink run to the left and a steel-framed glazed screen to the right. — Pendants clear of the beam

The tall cupboard run seen from the island, with a steel-framed screen on one side and glazed garden doors on the other. — Tall run between screen and garden doors

This project involved bespoke kitchens. See more work across West Sussex.

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