THE KITCHEN RULES How to design a workspace that works
On the design front, writer and keen cook Debora Robertson has had more kitchen nightmares than Gordon Ramsay – but she’s made it a mission to learn from others’ mistakes so you won’t have to. Follow her nine hard-won steps to finding true cupboard love
My first kitchen was the size of a large cupboard. It had a butler sink, a small larder cupboard, a gas cooker on feet that looked as if it might have trotted in from a museum, and a bathtub concealed beneath the counter.
My second was still small but pleasingly square, with a large window overlooking a busy London street. I’d emptied every pocket to buy this tiny flat, so I had no money for expensive improvements.
I painted it white with an applegreen window frame, and splashed blackboard paint on the door for shopping lists and drunken, late-night poems scrawled by friends. Wooden wine boxes lined the worktops as impromptu shelves. I cooked frequently and ambitiously in both these tiny kitchens – for one or two or 20 – never letting square footage get in the way of a good time.