Edd Kimber, baker, food writer and the first ever winner of the BBC’s Great British Bake Off, has spent much of his career baking in borrowed and improvised kitchens. After years of rented flats with cramped layouts and flimsy fittings, he and his partner finally took on a renovation of their own. They approached us to design their bespoke plywood kitchen, creating a space that supports the way Edd cooks, bakes, films and lives every day. Here, Edd (@theboywhobakes) reflects on the kitchens that shaped him, the decisions behind the new space and why good design matters as much as good ingredients. (Photography by Ruth Ward)
I’ve lived in London as long as I've been baking as a career and like anyone that moves to London in their 20’s life was a procession of rented flats, of varied levels of grubbiness. Some of the kitchens have been large but dated, some have been newer but miniscule. When we managed to buy our first flat a few years back it was so refreshing to have a space we could actually make changes to. We painted the cabinets and redecorated but it was still far from perfect. I was craving a space I could truly make my own. A baker's dream kitchen.
I grew up in a family that cooked a lot. It may sound like a cliche that a food writer's childhood memories are of baking with his mum but it just so happens to be true. That kitchen was always home to something delicious but unsurprisingly it was most often filled with homemade cakes. It was the kitchen where I learnt to bake and fell in love with food. It was also the kitchen I used when I was filming Bake Off. Whilst my parents style is definitely not my own, that space definitely has one big feature I wanted to replicate, a big window looking out on the garden. It also lacked a feature I came to want, an island so that I didn’t have to face a wall all day long.
Before we bought our renovation project our previous flat had a very serviceable but incredibly boring kitchen, it had a woeful amount of storage and it also had a worktop that stained if a coffee got anywhere even close to it. These all became things I was very conscious of when we approached the renovation.
I knew I wanted to get an island into the space, a hob with built in extraction and as much storage as we could possibly fit into the room. We also wanted to create a timeless space that we wouldn’t bore of in a few years. As we love entertaining and cooking for friends and family we wanted a space that would be the perfect entertaining space and as social as possible.
The difficulties we had with the existing space was that the original kitchen was a relatively small galley, a classic Victorian terrace. We knew we would need to extend but unlike most of the extensions we had seen, where a huge wasteful box is added to the back of the house we did a much smaller side return turning the galley kitchen into a space the same width as the rest of the house. We also decided to put the kitchen in the middle room as we wanted the social dining space to look into the garden.
I found you on Instagram actually. I love plywood kitchens and I loved how Uncommon works with it to make incredibly stylish kitchens but with a timeless quality that didn’t feel like it was chasing trends. I also love Scandinavian design and I could feel that influence in Uncommon’s work. After a decade and a half of renting the style was definitely front of mind but that also had to go hand in hand with function. Beyond being our family kitchen this is also my workspace and those two functions are often in contention with each other. Uncommon really helped us design the space so that the flow worked perfectly but also maximise our worktop space and storage.
When the measurements were taken we thought we’d have to put in some false panels to look like a cupboard, to hide some of the structural supports. Uncommon realised we could actually fit a veery shallow cupboard which ended up becoming a mini pantry, perfect for spices and canned food.
One element I hadn't considered in much detail before we started this project was the debate between cupboards and drawers. In the main part of our kitchen Uncommon advised us to go with big deep drawers and I now can't imagine a better way for peak organisation. Everything is so much more accessible and nothing is hidden at the back of a cupboard to be forgotten.
Having lived and worked in the new kitchen for a while, what difference has it made to your everyday cooking and your work?
With the island as the focus of the kitchen, it has made life so much more pleasant. The size of the worktop and the orientation of the space makes cooking much more enjoyable, it has also helped make me more productive when it comes to my work. I am not always the neatest person but the space has made it easier to be more organised. The kitchen also just exudes quality, it feels like a space built to last a lifetime. All of my previous kitchens have eventually become spaces I resent but after months of working in the new kitchen I just cant ever imagine that happening here, it has renewed my love of cooking and given me a space to bake to my heart's content.
I would really think about how you use the space. Only you know exactly what you need for a space that works well for you. Conversely it's also important to convey those needs to your kitchen designer and then listen to their advice; we took lots of suggestions from Uncommon and it resulted in a kitchen that just works so much better.
I guess you could say that the bones of the kitchen, the basic functionality, is the cake and the style is the decoration. You need both for a successful cake and both for a successful kitchen.
I want the space to feel welcoming and calming and to be a space that is known for fabulous meals and celebrations. We purposefully kept the dining and kitchen space open and connected because, as cliched as it might be, our kitchen was always going to be the heart of our home.
Because we wanted a sense of calm we wanted to keep as much off the worktop as possible. So many kitchens are littered with appliances and other kitchen paraphernalia and for me it makes the space feel how it looks. But it is also a balance, we didn’t want the space to feel like a show home or stark, we have strived for a personal lived in look but one that is still clean and calming.
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