At the kitchen table with Sophie Robinson

Sophie Robinson’s maximalist mantra knows no bounds when it comes to designing her countryside home. Step into her kitchen with Harlequin and sit down for a chat as we discover the space from mood board to heart of the home.

We all know that the kitchen is the heart of the home and its parameters are ever expanding. Once a humble place of food prep, with separate dining spaces that housed the formal furniture, now these rooms collectively rejoice in a conversational, functional space that welcomes and embraces everyone who steps over the threshold.

With this, rather hefty brief of feeding, watering, welcoming and entertaining, bestowed upon the hub of the home, it seems fitting that it should be filled with character, colour and life, a reflection of the breakfast table, bursting with flavour and buzzing with character.

Sophie Robinson, creator of joy, protector of the power palette and designer of maximalist wonder, joins us at the proverbial kitchen table, to chat about the design of her own kitchen and dining space at her countryside home, and how you too can get maximalism just right in the busiest room of the house.

Tell us about your original kitchen diner…

We flipped the kitchen and living room spaces because the original proportions felt unbalanced; we started out with a large living room to the rear of the house and a little kitchen at the front. We spend all our time in the kitchen and less time in the living room, so it felt right to flip the spaces and maximise on their square footage and natural light. This switch was full of opportunity as it allowed us to create an open, bright and joy-filled kitchen that faced our cherished garden and created a beautiful, cosy TV snug at the front of the home, to retire to in the evenings. The reconfiguration for me was all about challenging the assumptions of this old house. The slightly old-fashioned, grand living room that no one ever really sits in was given new life in the form of our kitchen and dining space, where we have a luxuriously large dining table to gather around and beautiful patio doors that take us out onto our garden for dinner outside.

What was the story you wanted to tell in this newly configured space?

The story always begins with asking questions, how will we use it? Who is using it? What are they doing in there and when are they doing it? We all have different habits and different ways of living in our homes, but for us, the kitchen and dining area was destined to bring everyone together, family, extended family, friends. Everyone. It’s a social space, it’s practical, we cook, we store food, we entertain and hang out. It’s a very hard-working space. The kitchen benefits from a huge amount of natural light. It is so joyous and uplifting and the design tells that story. It is a place of celebration, connected to the garden and the woodland beyond our patio doors.