The Heart of the Home
How the kitchen became the room we really live in
As the evenings begin to draw in and life gradually moves back indoors, our homes inevitably receive a little more attention. And there is one room that, perhaps more than any other, has transformed the way we live. There was a time when the kitchen was largely a place of practicality. Often tucked away at the back of the house, it was somewhere meals were prepared before being carried through to a separate dining room. Guests rarely ventured in and entertaining happened elsewhere.
How dramatically things have changed.
Today, the kitchen is quite often the room around which an entire home is planned. Walls have come down, islands have grown larger and cooking, dining and entertaining have increasingly merged into one space. It can be the first room awake in the morning and the last to quieten down at night.
Few local businesses have had quite as long to observe that transformation as Martins of Hawkhurst. The independent company has been trading for more than 50 years, during which time fashions, technology and our expectations of the kitchen have changed almost beyond recognition. Interestingly, there is no longer one definitive idea of what the perfect kitchen should look like.
Traditional cabinetry and natural timber remain wonderfully suited to the period properties and country homes found throughout Kent and Sussex, while contemporary extensions have introduced cleaner lines, quartz and Corian surfaces and increasingly discreet appliances. More often than not, elements of the two now happily coexist.
Technology has undergone an equally remarkable transformation. Boiling-water taps have replaced kettles in some homes, while extraction can now be incorporated directly into a hob. Yet traditional range cookers remain as desirable as ever, a reminder that progress doesn’t necessarily mean abandoning everything that came before.
For anyone contemplating a new kitchen, however, photographs and computer-generated designs can only tell part of the story. Worktops need to be touched, cupboards opened and appliances seen working. It is perhaps why the traditional showroom remains so relevant. At Martins’ Hawkhurst showroom, nine complete kitchen displays bring together modern and traditional designs with timber, laminate, quartz and Corian surfaces. More than 300 appliances are also on display, many of them live and available to demonstrate.
There are some interesting contrasts. Beautiful French-made Lacanche range cookers share the showroom with Bora vented hobs, Quooker taps and appliances from Miele and Fisher & Paykel, alongside familiar names including Bosch, Neff, Siemens, AEG and Beko. Yet creating a kitchen remains as much about people as products.
Several members of the Martins team have been with the company for more than 20 years, increasingly unusual continuity in an industry that depends heavily upon experience. Its designers can guide a project from those first tentative ideas through to installation, working with established local tradespeople, while those undertaking their own renovation can simply opt for supply.
After more than half a century, Martins has inevitably seen countless trends arrive, disappear and, occasionally, come back around again. But one thing has remained remarkably constant: our desire to create a home that works for the way we actually live.
And as autumn brings us back indoors once again, there are few places where that matters more than the room that has truly become the heart of the home.
www.martinsofhawkhurst.co.uk
