Cashmere and Oak Kitchen
Caistor

The client was a family in Caistor looking to replace their kitchen. They had been to local builders’ merchants and a couple of other suppliers, including Wren, and came away assuming a Samuel Neal kitchen would be beyond their budget. Sam looked at the brief and the pricing and showed them it was not. The Samuel Neal specification came in at a similar cost to the more generic alternatives they had been comparing, and offered considerably more in terms of design quality and finish. The clients went ahead without hesitation.  

The brief was for a calming, neutral kitchen that felt warm and well organised, with enough storage to suit a busy family household. The compact, U-shaped layout was a given; the challenge was to make it feel generous rather than squeezed.

The most distinctive decision in the layout is the continuous drawer line. Most kitchens break the drawer run at corners, typically with a full-height corner post that interrupts the horizontal rhythm of the cabinetry. Here, the drawer line continues all the way around the kitchen, including through the corners and under the sink, creating a visual consistency that gives the room a calm, considered quality that immediately draws the eye. Achieving this required bespoke corner solutions and a shallower drawer unit under the sink to accommodate the Quooker tank behind it: practical problem-solving that preserves the aesthetic without compromising the function. 

Both the sink and the venting hob sit under windows, which means every position where time is spent in the kitchen has natural light and a view. The venting hob in particular benefits from its position: by extracting downward, it removes the need for an overhead extractor on that wall, which would have blocked the window and changed the feel of the room entirely. The fridge and breakfast pantry are positioned at the dining end of the kitchen, keeping the working cooking zone and the everyday snacking and breakfast area naturally separated.

The cabinetry is Häcker Top Soft Cashmere, a warm, muted neutral that suits the overall tone of the kitchen without being a strong colour statement. The vintage oak open shelves and the bespoke breakfast pantry (in matching oak with LED lighting that activates when the doors open) bring a natural material warmth into a kitchen that would otherwise be entirely painted and handleless in character. The pantry was built specifically for this kitchen and houses small appliances behind its doors, keeping the worktops clear. 

The Dekton Entzo veined worktops have matching upstands throughout, and the venting hob is Neff, from the Flex collection, alongside Neff Flex ovens and an XXL fridge freezer that is extra-wide and extra-tall to maximise refrigeration capacity without taking up too much additional floor space. The boiling-water tap in patinated brass sits alongside a large granite resin sink: a generous sink specification because a properly sized sink makes cooking, cleaning and washing up noticeably easier.

Sam remained closely involved throughout, from the initial design conversations through to installation. The continuous drawer line, the bespoke corner solutions and the shallower drawer unit accommodating the Quooker tank all required careful coordination between the cabinetry specification and what was happening on site. Sam attended the key installation stages to ensure the finished kitchen reflected the design as agreed.

The finished kitchen shows what is possible in a compact space. The continuous drawer line gives it a visual cohesion that most kitchens of this size simply don’t have. The oak features bring warmth. The sink and hob positions make the kitchen a genuinely pleasant place to work. And the fact that it came in at a comparable cost to a builders-merchant alternative makes it a clear demonstration that a better kitchen does not always mean a bigger spend.