By Serena Fokschaner

Johnny Grey, leading kitchen designer and author of Kitchen Culture, believes the kitchen has never played a more important role in our households. ‘Like the medieval Great Hall which was used for anything that was required of household life, the modern kitchen has become an active living space,’ says Grey who designed his first kitchen, aged 14, for his mother. ‘More of us are opting for larger kitchens by expanding the space with conservatories or extensions so that the kitchen can perform the function of the living room.’

Johnny adds that he often incorporates a staircase into the kitchen. ‘It is one of the best ways of getting more pedestrian traffic in to the space as well as bringing the upstairs corridor and circulation in to the equation. The whole house starts to become easier to circulate in and feels more integrated.’

Any reputable kitchen company can produce a design that suits your culinary needs but it is those cleverly-thought out design extras which can transform a kitchen from the merely practical to family friendly.

A favourite device of Johnny’s, which has been much imitated, is to incorporate a low-level work surface at 750mm high for children. ‘It’s their own little area where they can do their homework, help with cooking or make smoothies,’ says Grey whose favoured material is marble ‘ideal for rolling pastry.’ The under counter space is left deliberately empty. ‘It’s the perfect place to make a camp or for use as a dog hideaway,’ says Grey.

Orientation is the key to the family-centred kitchen. In the past, traditional galley kitchen spaces meant that parents spent most of their time poring over chopping boards with their backs to the children. Today’s more capacious kitchens have room for islands or peninsular units which can perform a multiplicity of functions.

Interior designer and mother of three Emily Todhunter, of partnership Todhunter Earle, is a great fan of her peninsular island which houses the hob. ‘It means I can cook and interact with the children when they’re doing their homework or watching TV.’ She also recommends bar stools from Alternative Plans, ‘You can adjust them to different heights and they’re great as extra seating for children’s parties.’

Both Emily and Johnny recommend elevating your dishwasher above a cupboard to hip height, ‘So you can talk and stack at the same time,’ says Emily. Another idea from Johnny is to invest in the side-by-side ‘drawer’ dishwashers made by Fisher and Paykel, made in two sections each of which can operate simultaneously on different cycles. So glasses can go in one drawer on a delicate wash while pots and pans enjoy a full-on clean in the other (from £699).

At Roundhouse Designs, Jane Telford agrees that clients now demand a great deal more than just decent storage or worktops from a kitchen. For one family, the company designed an island with two surface heights. One is at grown-up height with a lower level counter for the children to perch on their Trip Trap chairs and do homework or eat at. Another recent clever island design incorporates a blackboard at one end for scribbling on.

Johnny Grey says that he often devotes part of the central island to a huge cupboard for toys. ‘It provides a useful distraction from all those cupboards you’d rather your children didn’t open. And you can also fill it with tupperware, old saucers and kitchen bits children love to play with.’

Grey also pioneered the ‘unfitted kitchen’, a mix of freestanding and fitted pieces. Wary of ‘overstyled, glossy designs’, he believes firmly that kitchens should be places where you ‘can relax and children can make a mess.’ He also says that the truly sociable kitchen should have lots of perching places - for sipping wine and chatting with your host; or reading a book. To meet this requirement, Grey designed the ‘court’ cupboard (from the French word court meaning short). This is a cupboard which sits on a low table; you can sit on the table or stand on it to reach the upper shelves of the cupboard. Underneath the table are tucked handy baskets for storage.

Today’s sophisticated kitchen designs mean that culinary ware - plates, baking dishes, saucepans and utensils - can be stored in drawers fitted out with peg systems or dividers. This frees up overhead space for more decorative elements. Gail Taylor, of working-mum design duo Taylor Howes, is the satisfied owner of a supremely ergonomic Bulthaup kitchen. ‘Almost everything is housed in drawers or pull out cupboards. This means I can use the overhead wall space for fun things like displaying family photos.’

For another aesthetic touch, Gail recommends Ikea’s minimalist, cantilevered Lack shelves. ‘You can hang them anywhere and they look great lined with pots of pasta or stacked leather storage boxes.’

She says don’t overlook the importance of floor-to-ceiling storage either. ‘You can’t have enough of it with children. We have a big cupboard which is lined with pigeonholes for shoe, school bags and bike helmets as well as coat hooks hung at a child level behind the doors,’ says Gail. A good carpenter can build you a functional piece, or scour the internet or markets for cheaper second-hand cupboards which you customise yourself. Colourful pinboards, says Gail, are another way to inject some life in to a kitchen. ‘My upholsterer makes up oversized boards for me covered in brightly coloured felt which are great for displaying the children’s artwork.’

Joanna Wood, who has two daughters, is another designer who excels at the ‘live-eat-work’ kitchen space. Her own kitchen is kept neat with decorative boxes sourced from the Holding Company and Habitat ‘for swallowing up Lego or dressing-up clothes’. A comfy sofa is essential ‘for watching Mary Poppins or a grown-up wineglass in hand moment’. Joanna recommends chests from mail-order company Oka which double as coffee tables and storage, ‘so you can transform a children’s area in to a civilised place.’ For practical, inexpensive rugs, Joanna uses lengths of inexpensive carpeting trimmed with a good quality border (try Crucial Trading or the Alternative Flooring Company).

‘We went through a phase when the kitchen was hidden away,’ says interior designer Staffan Tollgard. ‘Now the line between the living and kitchen space is blurring. As kitchens become more beautiful to look at, people are becoming more comfortable with open-plan layouts.’

For one kitchen project, Staffan painted a wall entirely with blackboard paint. ‘The children can scribble on it and the parents can write lists.’ Swedish-born Staffan likes to use a mix of fitted and free-standing pieces such as traditional Swedish kitchen benches which have useful storage underneath (a favourite shop is the Blue Door in Barnes which specialises in Scandinavian antiques). Staffan, named as one of IDFX’s designers to watch this year, believes there are lots of ways in which manufacturers could make kitchens more family-oriented. One idea he has is to introduce pull-out platforms tucked under skirtings for children to stand on while helping out with the cooking.

As the kitchen becomes an ever-more vital part of our homes, manufacturers are vying to produce increasingly sleek and luxurious designs. If you have the cash to spare, it’s possible to spend a small fortune on a truly bespoke kitchen replete with all the bespoke trimmings - be it walnut lashed with stainless steel or even leather clad cupboards. But ultimately, it is not what you spend but what you do with the space that makes the kitchen a truly family-centric place.

Johnny Grey 01730 821 424
Fisher & Paykel 0845 600 1934
Staffan Tollgard 020 8748 0088
Todhunter Earle 020 7349 9999
Joanna Wood 020 7730 0693
Roundhouse Kitchens 020 7229 2123
Gail Taylor and Taylor Howe 020 7349 9017
The Blue Door 020 8749 9785