The brief
A fully fitted family kitchen in Notting Hill where the owners wanted every surface that was not timber to be hand-applied mineral: the walls, the worktops and the floor, in three quiet tones rather than the usual patchwork of paint, stone and tile. Soft sage on the walls, chalk on the worktops and a blush pink underfoot, all set against walnut cabinetry and a pair of pink wall lights.
The brief had a practical edge: this is a kitchen that gets used hard, every day. Whatever went on the worktops and the floor had to shrug off hot pans, red wine and young children.
What we did
The walls were finished in lime-based Venetian plaster in a soft sage, applied in thin burnished coats over the existing plasterwork and carried straight down to the worktop with no tiled splashback. Lime breathes, so the walls handle the steam of a working kitchen without the film of condensation you get on painted surfaces, and the run behind the sink and hob is sealed so it wipes clean.
The worktops and the island top were taken in worktop-grade microcement in chalk, sealed with a food-safe, stain-resistant system and formed around the sink and hob cut-outs without a joint. The floor is the same material in a floor grade, mesh-reinforced over the existing screed and pigmented a blush pink that runs from the hallway through the kitchen and out into the glazed side return.
We formed the worktop edges with a soft radius rather than a sharp arris: kinder to knocks and it lets the light roll off the edge the way it does on stone.
The detail
- Lime Venetian plaster to walls in a soft sage - breathable, burnished by hand.
- Worktop-grade microcement to worktops and island in chalk, no upstand, no tile.
- Floor-grade microcement in blush pink, mesh-reinforced, one surface from hall to side return.
- Food-safe sealing system, maintained with pH-neutral cleaning only.
The result
The kitchen the family cooks in now has no grout line anywhere: walls, worktops and floor are three hand-trowelled surfaces, each sealed for its job and wiped clean in a pass. The lime plaster on the walls regulates moisture in a busy room, the matte microcement worktops hide the marks of daily use rather than showing them and the blush floor gives a walnut and sage kitchen its warmth. All three colours were matched on panels under this kitchen's light, so what was chosen is what was installed.
