Jonathan has always sought to minimise waste materials with his Zero Waste project. I support this hugely, so we worked together to design in such a way to keep waste to an absolute minimum.
The depth of cabinets and worktops, and the width of the cupboard doors, were designed with an eye to available sheet sizes of materials. That meant we got the most for our money too.
We settled on cabinets made from walnut but, where many clients would seek cosmetic perfection, I was happy to take the material warts and all. When you look at the ribs on the kitchen cabinets, you’ll see paler sapwood that is usually discarded, but we kept and used everything, celebrating the natural variation in the wood’s colour.
Larger offcuts were turned into chopping boards, small ones were used to make drawer inserts, tiny ones that were good for nothing went in the log pile for the wood-burning stove. And when it came to making the dining table, Jonathan cleverly used leftover material from the kitchen splashback, along with another sheet of Hi-Macs from the same batch, to make a table top of the perfect size.
