Kitchen Haven: Kate Watson-Smyth

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Tell us about yourself

I’m Kate Watson-Smyth, a journalist and design writer, and founder of madaboutthehouse.com. I’ve written five books, co-hosted a podcast, created an online course and worked on several product collaborations. I live in north London with my husband, Ad, and one of my two sons, who is finishing off his master’s degree. The other lives in a student house round the corner.

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What work did you do to this kitchen?

The kitchen is long and thin. It’s about three metres by five metres, with a three-metre-square extension at the back. When we moved in, the extension was the utility room with a shower room on one side. We kept the shower and rebranded the room as a pantry by adding an internal window and taking the same kitchen units and shelves right through for a feeling of continuity. The floor is laid with reclaimed Ca’ Pietra terracotta tiles and the worktop is Halman Thompson aged copper, which is super-practical and antibacterial.

We didn’t want a modern kitchen, as we felt that didn’t fit with its Victorian worker’s cottage origins, so we also tracked the lighting conduits across the ceiling and added Dyke & Dean ceramic bulb holders, rather than downlighters. Finally, we added French doors to the side, and one day we might add a greenhouse to give us another sitting space.

What made you decide against an extension?

I obsess over floor plans and I knew we weren’t going to extend this kitchen. It needed completely redoing; the estate agent assumed we would build into the side return but there was already an extension at the back and I didn’t see the point of knocking down one space to spend £100,000 moving it to a different place and not gaining any more square footage. I also knew if we did that we would create a gigantic kitchen that we would be in all the time, so we wouldn’t use the sitting room and would probably lose the downstairs shower room, which felt like a mistake.

When rooms don’t work, we often assume the answer is to make them bigger but extensions can make existing spaces darker and aren’t always the solution. Sometimes it’s about making better use of what is already there.

How do you make a smaller kitchen space work?

Given that we weren’t going to extend, the first thing was to make a long, narrow space work to its best advantage. I ran the units all the way down one side, added an internal window and carried them on into the pantry.

There was no room for an island and I was happy with that. I had an island in my last house and was ready to try a different layout. There’s plenty of room for two people to prep food or drinks on either side of the oven and, handily, since three of the four of us are left-handed, the draining board was able to go on the left-hand side of the sink over the dishwasher, which creates its own space for either clean or dirty dishes, depending on the time of day.

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How did you design your kitchen storage?

I designed sliding doors for the open shelves to hide some of the less attractive and practical items, and keep the dust levels down. It was all expertly made by DIY Alcove Cabinets who, despite not having made anything like this before, rose to the brief perfectly. The shelves also stop the narrow room from feeling even narrower, as they don’t project into the space.

The pantry houses storecupboard items like tins and jars, the washing machine and an undercounter freezer, as well as a space for lightbulbs, paintbrushes and all that sort of stuff that seems to accumulate.

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When do you most enjoy your kitchen?

I’m old-school and love nothing more than a Saturday morning spent reading the papers, catching up on magazines and drinking pots of coffee. But we also gather here as a family for dinner. My younger son is a student living round the corner but he can usually be persuaded home for supper if there’s a roast chicken on offer. My older son is also in two or three times a week and, as he’s vegetarian, we’ve all been working to improve our cooking to be more inclusive of him, not to mention better our diets.

This isn’t the lightest of rooms but in the early morning the sun does penetrate so, if I can get up in time, I love that quiet moment with a cup of coffee and Wordle before anyone else is up. I also like the other end of the day when we make a drink and start the evening.

I like to prepare everything in the early evening so that all I then have to do is cook it. If I have time to do that then I find it relaxing. If I start late or it turns out to be more work than I thought, I rush it and don’t find it enjoyable.

If I’m honest, I’d rather read a good novel with a slice of homemade focaccia and a small bowl of olives while occasionally looking up to see my husband cooking – I find that quite decompressing!

What makes your kitchen special?

For me, this is a room in which we cook and eat, not just a kitchen. There’s a difference in the design, and for me, that’s crucial.

It’s the colours – soft pinks, reds, terracotta and copper – but it’s also the Merchant & Found vintage chairs that all add to a homely feel. It’s not a high-tech space at all but a comfortable one with soft lighting and warm colours.

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What is your favourite piece of kitchen kit?

My moka coffee pot. (Check out our coffee experts pick of the best moka pots to buy to find your own).

Is there a family dish you cook again and again?

Many years ago I discovered a Nigel Slater recipe for pork meatballs with anchovies, parmesan, breadcrumbs, thyme and chilli flakes, and I cook it all the time with cavolo nero. It takes about five minutes to prepare, then you fry the meatballs for a few minutes before putting them in the oven with some stock, which creates a lovely sauce. They’re also good with buttered tagliatelle.