This showstopping kitchen was once an old swimming pool – 6 design tricks that turned the vast space into the cosy heart of the home

When Lorna and Phil saw the location of this house, they fell in love with it. Called 'Woodlands', it is surrounded by trees – in fact, you can see them from every window.

'We love wood; it’s natural beauty, versatility, and the warmth that it brings to a home,' says Lorna. However, it came with one eye-watering challenge, the space where the kitchen was due to go...

'The kitchen was originally a large vaulted room that contained a swimming pool and a hot tub! We knew from our first viewing of the house that this was not something that we wanted to retain. We saw beyond the blue swimming pool and could see how it could become a kitchen, albeit with a lot of work!' explains Lorna of her kitchen renovation ideas.

The couple had chosen deVOL Kitchens, which was a 'non-negotiable' according to Lorna. With the size of this space, it was important to get the design right from the start and the couple, together with deVOL, came up with some genius ideas for making the spacious open-plan kitchen feel cohesive and practical.

These are the tricks to borrow from this striking kitchen renovation if you're negotiating an intimidating space in your home.

1. Get inspiration from places you love

The homeowners had quite a clear idea of what they wanted to achieve in this large open space, but they did their homework before work started.

'We like to visit National Trust properties, and that had also informed the look and feel that we wanted, which was to create a kitchen as though it had always been there, while combining some more contemporary elements as well.

Blending both old and new together was important to us, and taking even a small item such as a jug or a painting and using the colours within were inspirations.'

2. Have a focal point

'We absolutely didn’t want a ‘fitted kitchen look‘ instead, we wanted something that looked as though it had aged gracefully with the house and that it had history,' explained Lorna.

The couple had acquired a four-door dark grey AGA that they had bought from friends. 'It was essential to us that the AGA was a focal point of the room, for the warmth that it brings, particularly when creating such a large space.

Lorna has also sourced some lovely pieces of very old reclaimed wood panelling and reclaimed oak parquet ready for the floor.

3. Create zones

The biggest challenge was the size of the space – a huge 13 x 7 metres no less!

Lorna explains, 'Not only was it a huge space, it has came with a very high vaulted ceiling which at some point had had another floor put across, reducing the height of the room. We were both actually quite terrified about creating a big room that just felt like a warehouse!'

We had several large pieces of furniture that we knew would work within the space. These included a lovely old haberdashery cabinet – which now contains all of our table linens but was originally from a school uniform shop!' Lorna shares.'

The solution was to create smaller areas or zones within the kitchen when planning the open-plan kitchen ideas. 'The plan was for it to feel like a series of little rooms or room sets within one larger space,' says Lorna.

'We achieved this by using strategically placed furniture and the use of different tables and chairs to create a different feeling in each area.

So for example, there is a small round metal table and two chairs where people quite naturally sit and have a coffee in the morning and look out of the doors to the garden, there are two vintage green leather Norwegian chairs with a small table between them piled with books and a little round rug, we like to sit and read there,' says Lorna.

These cleverly placed pieces created cosy areas for relaxing in, whilst still feeling part of whatever was going on in the kitchen space.

4. Incorporate storage into your island

You may think, 'well a large kitchen would have loads of storage space', but when you're creating a kitchen space from scratch, you have to factor in kitchen storage ideas at every opportunity.

'We chose to have a very large island in the kitchen, which has glazed doors all along one side so that you can see our crockery and glassware within it, and we placed this off centre so it felt less predictable.'

Other clever storage solutions include hanging rails across the beams and the ends of the kitchen island and built-in wooden rails for linens and tea towels.

5. Create a pantry

'The existing changing room for the swimming pool became the walk-in pantry – something I love to mention to guests when they visit,' says Lorna.

The door was removed so that it felt as though it became part of the kitchen, and reclaimed scaffold boards were used for shelving. Sheets of tongue-and-groove boarding on the walls.

Next to the pantry sits the tea and coffee station, complete with its own sink; it's part of another zoned area that works really well and includes the fridge too.

6. Colour drench

The couple wanted to create cohesion at every point of the design.

'The biggest compliment anybody ever pays us when they come to visit is not remarking on how large the kitchen is at all, it’s by saying how cosy it feels, and most people almost surprise themselves that they are saying that, knowing that it is clearly a very big room. This is exactly what we wanted,' says Lorna.

This, in part, is down to the colour scheme: 'We colour-drenched the room and that transformed the space.'

The colour chosen for the colour drenching is Stone Dark Warm. The island and units were a custom dark green, for a similar colour try Obsidian Green, both Little Greene. The tea and coffee station area is Mushroom by deVOL Kitchens.

Recreate the look

'We love everything about it this space now, it is everything we could have imagined. It has certainly changed the space from swimming pool to a kitchen! We use the spaces very effectively every day and there are no dead areas, even though it’s a very large room,' says Lorna.