A Bespoke Kitchen Bookcase: The Hadley Wood Project
To add to the bespoke features in this classic shaker kitchen in
, we built a bookcase into the wall space that flows round to the new extension. We are usually asked for
for drinks and glassware, so designing a full bookcase for a kitchen was a welcome change. Because the cabinetry is made to order rather than assembled from stock sizes, we can make use of an awkward run of wall that no standard unit would fit, and match it to the style of the rest of the house.
A Bespoke Kitchen Bookcase at a Glance
A bespoke kitchen bookcase is a made-to-measure unit that stores cookery books in the kitchen itself, built in the same style and paint as the cabinetry so it reads as part of the run rather than as furniture brought in afterwards. This one combines closed storage below with open, mirror-backed shelving above, strip lighting on each shelf, a stone cold shelf, and drawers fitted with solid walnut chopping boards. Handmade Kitchen Company design and build cabinetry of this kind from our workshop in Essex.
The design
Built in our classic shaker style, the bookcase has in-frame doors with a shallow recessed panel, and flat-fronted drawers for a slightly more modern note against the traditional frame. We hand-painted the whole unit in Paint & Paper Library Slate V 165, the darkest of the five graduated shades in their Slate family, which gives the piece enough weight to hold its own against the rest of the kitchen. Half the unit is left open, with shelves and a mirrored backing that bounces light around when it catches the glass. The shelving gives our client room for a large collection of cookery books alongside the odd decorative piece, which is the point of putting a bookcase in a kitchen rather than a hallway: the books live where they are actually used.
Lighting and the cold shelf
We added strip lighting to each shelf, which turns the unit into a focal point in the evening rather than a dark recess at the end of the room. Lighting open shelving is what separates a bookcase that looks deliberate from one that looks like storage. The cold shelf is cut from the same worktop as the rest of the kitchen, Noble Carrara. A cold shelf is a slab of stone or quartz set into a unit, traditionally used to keep butter, cheese and baking ingredients cool, and it also gives a hard-wearing surface at working height. Here it ties the bookcase back to the main run so the two read as one scheme.
Storage worked into the base
Among the drawers and cupboards we found room for bespoke
chopping boards and a serving tray
in solid walnut. They pull out where they are needed, and they free up space elsewhere in the kitchen that would otherwise be given over to storing boards flat. We later returned to this house to build further furniture for the family, which is covered in
the continuation of the Hadley Wood story
.
Bespoke Kitchen Bookcase FAQs
Should cookery books be stored in the kitchen?
Yes, provided they are kept away from steam and direct heat. Books stored above or beside a hob will cockle and discolour. A run of shelving on a wall away from the cooking zone, ideally with a door or two for the volumes you rarely open, keeps them in reach without damaging them.
What is a cold shelf?
A slab of stone, marble or quartz built into a unit or pantry. Stone stays cooler than the air around it, so it was traditionally used for butter, cheese, pastry and baking ingredients. It remains useful today, and doubles as a hard-wearing work surface.
Why put a mirror behind open shelving?
A mirrored back reflects light into a unit that would otherwise read as a dark void, and it makes shallow shelving feel deeper than it is. It works particularly well with strip lighting, because the light is bounced back through the shelf rather than absorbed.
Can a bookcase match the rest of the kitchen?
It should. Building it in the same door style, the same paint and the same worktop as the main run is what stops it looking like a separate piece of furniture pushed against a wall. Here that meant classic shaker in-frame doors, Slate V paintwork and a Noble Carrara shelf.
Where does Handmade Kitchen Company build bespoke bookcases?
We design, hand-build and hand-paint bespoke kitchens and cabinetry, including bookcases and dressers, from our workshop in Essex, for clients across Essex, Hertfordshire and North London. If you would like to know more about our bespoke designs,
today. We can design and build furniture suited to your own space and style.
