A Playful Plywood Kitchen with a Nod to the Home's MCM Heritage
This 1960s Mid-century modern atrium home has been reconfigured to create a flexible, open-plan kitchen, dining and living space. Discover the before and after images, and see how a playful plywood kitchen complements the home's original architectural character, with generous storage making the most of its compact footprint.
Can you tell us a bit about the home?
'It's a late ‘60’s/ early 70’s small Mid century modern 4 bed house sharing a communal garden with its neighbours. It has an integral garage and a central, double height atrium in the middle of the floor plan.'
Describe the kitchen before you renovated it.
'When we bought the house it still had its original galley-style kitchen separated from the living room by a stud wall. These rooms opened into the atrium - we think this would originally have been the dining area.'
What were the main goals for the renovation?
'We decided to open up all three rooms into one open plan space to give us more flexibility in use.
The footprint of the house is compact in size so for the build we wanted to get as much storage space as we could; not only for the kitchen but also to replace the need for cabinets or floor standing storage for the living area as well.
We also needed to think about the fact that the kitchen would be seen partially from above. We definitely didn’t want to be looking down onto the tops of fridges/extractor fans/wall mounted units!'
If budget was a concern, what were you prepared to spend on/save on?
'We thought we could compromise on many of the carcasses and spend the money on the doors. It would have been lovely for all the units to be ply throughout, but where we could use Ikea units we did.'
Can you describe the overall look and feel of the kitchen?
'Our goal was to create a ‘60s style plywood kitchen that was sympathetic to the original architectural volumes of the building.'
What influenced your material choices?
'Talking through choices with Kristine at Plykea was very helpful. We wanted the colours to have a quieter, more ‘50s vibe and she was very helpful with this.'
What did you enjoy about working with Plykea?
'The project was in the end a combination of three things; Plykea, Ikea and Mykea! We used Ikea carcasses where we could, and we made the rest of the units to match the look as best we could. Plykea worked with us to make the non-standard units and this speaks volumes about them as a company; we are thrilled with the result!'
What’s your top tip for renovating that we can share with future customers?
'Being able to visualise the design in 3D before committing is incredibly useful; we used free open source software Blender to model and render the project and this allowed us to live with the design virtually before making any expensive decisions!'
If you’re planning an IKEA kitchen upgrade, plywood kitchen, or custom kitchen fronts we’d love to meet you. Book an appointment to explore the materials, handles and worktops that we offer and say ‘hi’ to our team.