Reclaimed materials in the kitchen

Reclaimed Materials in the Kitchen

Individuality

Your home should be a place where you can express your personality and taste, and this can be done through the way you decorate.

Using reclaimed and salvaged materials is a brilliant way to do this thanks to their individual and unique nature.

However, I would recommend living in your environment for a while before you make any decorating decisions.

In this lesson, we'll be discussing the elements that make up a kitchen and where there are opportunities for salvaged materials to come into play, with work surfaces, storage pieces and splashbacks, to name a few.

Sourcing the Materials

A lot of the materials in this apartment have been salvaged by my partner, Adam Hills, who heads up the architectural salvage department within our business.

Brass Copper Plates

Used both historically and today at the bottom or side of doors to protect the wood when they are pushed open.

Why we love them

• They all come with pre-drilled holes, making them easy to install.
• Available in a variety of sizes, giving you the opportunity to create interesting laying patterns.

How we use them

• Splashback: they are water resistant and easy to wipe clean.
• Upstands: the small ones work brilliantly above countertops as added protection against splashes.
• Skirting boards: you can also use the small ones as decorative skirting boards.

Picture Frames

These picture frames were salvaged from a museum in London, and we have used the reverse of the glass.

Why we love them

• Glass is incredibly practical in a kitchen, as it's easy to clean.
• We kept the original contents inside the picture frames, but you could also personalise them and add your own.
• Offers flexibility, as you can also change the contents over the years.

How we use them

• Wall-hung cupboards: the picture frames became door fronts to shallow wall-hung cupboards.

Iroko Desktops

This is a material we use time and time again at Retrouvious and has become a bit of a staple of ours.

Why we love them

• Incredibly versatile.
• Ages fantastically but can also be refinished very easily with sanding.
• You can choose to keep the patina of scratches, marks and graffiti or clean it up entirely.

How we use them

• Base units: I fell in love with the profile of some teak wall cladding we salvaged, and we were able to replicate this profile into the Iroko timber. The profile incorporated grooves for you to use to pull open the doors and drawers.

Further reading

• The kitchen of Elizabeth David