When kitchen and bathroom designer Nick Kenny moved from The Tin Church, an outstanding landmark building in Faversham, his friends waited with bated breath to see where he’d lay his hat next. They had to wait for nearly a year while Nick rented and sofa-surfed, storing his tools in his car, as he gradually worked his magic on this tiny 1930s terraced house.
Over the course of the year, Nick scoured it back to brick to remove any sign of its past owners, which included a hoarder and his rodent lodgers. ‘I mourned my lovely church,’ says Nick, ‘but I was determined at least to replicate its most important asset: light.’ Not easy in a small two-up, two-down terrace, but with five roof lights that bring in light and sunshine from every angle, and with careful colour choices, he’s beginning to feel at home.
Although the walls are whitewashed with ‘the cheapest white emulsion’, boldly coloured furniture, mostly made or adapted by Nick, and numerous collections give the house its character and style. Painted in dirty blues, greens, yellows and reds, it is clear he is drawn to all the primaries.
‘My sailing days have given me a love of blue – that sandy blue seen from the boat as you reach the end of your voyage; red from my 11 years living in the Chinese Quartier in Paris; that Welsh green, redolent of the 1950s; and a mustardy yellow, all with a dash of grime.’
Nick’s particular style – domestic with industrial finishes – is seen at its best in the kitchen and bathroom. His declaration: ‘If I could stop buying stuff, I’d be a minimalist’ rings hollow when the kitchen’s contents are viewed, but he insists it’s the ideal size, and bigger than the space in his apartment in Paris where dinner parties for eight to 12 were the norm.
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Many of his utensils have stories, particularly a venerable chopping board belonging to his Parisian neighbour, Madame Pethivier, which has seen ‘a lifetime of charcuterie and happiness’.
The bathroom is a paean to his craft, featuring his trademark tiling, with patchwork wall and floor tiles. Part Mondrian and part public baths, it’s utilitarian and economical, making use of offcuts and bargain-basement runs. The plumbing is instantly recognised by those who know as his, with freestyle copper tubing and plenty of industrial gauges, tanks and handles.
Nick may specialise in kitchens and bathrooms, but his penchant for cupboards is obvious in every room and he raises their making to an art form. ‘I make them for my own amusement,’ he says, ‘but sometimes I sell them to friends.
When I first moved to France, I’d buy up old armoires and turn them into larders.’ His own Chinese red larder in the kitchen is faced with second-hand French zinc roofing panels and decorated with hinges and industrial handles; a larger version, a boiler cupboard next to the bathroom, is covered with cast-iron industrial warning signs.
The best example of his cupboard love is probably a small enamel-topped sideboard in the dining room: it has a tiled insert in the door and zinc surrounds on the small, square drawers, which make the ceramic handles sing out. There is also a fine medicine cabinet in the bathroom with decorative zinc crosses on the doors.
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Nick buys from boot fairs in Kent and from brocantes and fairs in Belgium and France, favouring Amiens and Viognier. ‘Nowadays I’m more likely to be selling than buying,’ he says. ‘And I never buy anything new for my home.’
A recent visit to Faversham Antiques Market yielded a small Chinese box, which he explains will be the basis of a small cupboard that will be displayed with other artworks above the mantelpiece in the dining room.
Nick works from the front room, drawing plans at a small table, and plotting new designs with his tools and materials, which are stored in the boxes that surround him. The focal point of the room is an artwork that expresses his opinion of US policy in Guantanamo, featuring a songbird travelling box against the stars and stripes.
Up the narrow stairs, the formerly small and gloomy bedrooms are flooded with light from skylights that let the sunshine pour in via a storage space in the roof that is reached by ladder. The fitted cabinets, with space for clothes and accessories, were originally French kitchen unit doors to which Nick added handles from a second-hand shop in Margate.
Although Nick was brought up in an era where interiors were probably mostly determined by Barry Bucknall (the 1960s DIY television builder who converted houses with hardboard and glue), his ideas have been influenced by more esoteric sources: Austrian architect and artist Hundertwasser, and Catalan sculptor and set-builder Antoni Clavé. These influences add a singular style to his plumbing and tiling – making any interior he touches distinctly his.
Nick Kenny can be commissioned for bathrooms and kitchens at nickjkenny@live.co.uk.
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