Jack Kinsey: Why I ripped out my new £15,000 kitchen
Decorator's remorse is a common affliction: many of us have fallen for a rug that looks comically small once in situ, or chosen a paint we wished we'd tested more thoroughly. But kitchen regret is a much costlier mistake to put right.
The content creator Jack Kinsey admits he 'followed the norms' when putting a kitchen into his home four years ago. His once-derelict Edwardian chapel in the Norfolk countryside is anything but ordinary, yet the white Howdens units he chose — with a curved island and dark granite worktops — were the definition of it.
'It was just way too modern for the building and it didn't have any real warmth or personality to it,' Kinsey says. When the 29-year-old finished as a runner-up in the 2023 series of the BBC show Interior Design Masters, he returned home wanting to apply all that he had learnt to the space he shares with his partner, Alex. 'My creativity was really sculpted from being on the show and I wanted to embrace talking points around my home,' he says.
• Read more expert advice on property, interiors and home improvement
Another driver for starting again was a wish to reinstate a fireplace that the couple had naively covered up when renovating. 'Being an old chapel, it gets really cold in winter, so we wanted to move the kitchen to another wall,' he explains.
Kinsey dreamt of a handmade kitchen by DeVol, but quickly surmised that was out of his budget (the brand helpfully publishes costings alongside case studies on its website). So he turned to eBay and found a pair of handsome wardrobes and sideboards in solid reclaimed oak. 'We pushed it to be a bit more of a challenge than just buying a new kitchen,' he says. The oak set cost £3,500 — less than 10 per cent of what the DeVol cabinets might have set him back.
To recoup the cost of new appliances, Kinsey advertised the Howdens suite — appliances included — for £2,000 on Facebook Marketplace. Within two days it had been snapped up.
'We photographed it really nicely. I always think if you're going to put something on Marketplace, make it stand out from everything else. I think everyone should be doing this — it's a really good way to upcycle and reuse,' he says.
Of the dozen messages of interest Kinsey received, it was a couple renovating a rectory elsewhere in Norfolk who bagged themselves a bargain (Kinsey estimates the original kitchen to have cost about £15,000). He and his partner spent two days dismantling the units and shrink-wrapping them for protection, then delivered them to their new home. Surprisingly there were no casualties. 'They sent us a picture of it afterwards and it looked great,' he says.
He sounds just as unfazed about installing his own second-hand treasure. Roping in his dad to help, they had to add 20cm of depth to the 40cm-deep units in order to accommodate appliances. Sawn-off bits of skirting board and coving were rejigged to make the units fit for purpose. The ovens are hidden behind a pair of louvered doors, which ingeniously help with ventilation; a second pair open to reveal a Mediterranean-inspired drinks station wrapped in Spanish tiles, and exuberant appliances from Dolce & Gabbana's collaboration with Smeg, including a set of mini fridges and gadgets, ranging from a toaster to a milk frother, totalling several thousands of pounds. Kinsey says it was a justified splurge: 'Because we'd saved a lot of money on the cost of the kitchen, I wanted to treat myself. When we open the doors, everyone always feels transported somewhere cool.'
• What I wish I'd done differently renovating my kitchen
For the worktops, Kinsey turned to Neolith. He was drawn to marble but put off by its fragility and porosity. By contrast, Neolith's sintered stone, 'is the best thing, because we can cut on it and put hot pans on it', he says. Wrapping the material up the sides of the tall cabinets disguises any gaps and joins.
Granted, the drawers of his sideboards don't have the soft closures found in a modern kitchen, but Kinsey is thrilled with his new space. His advice to others needing to pivot on a budget is as follows: 'Try to think outside of the box — you can get some beautiful freestanding furniture and upcycle it into a kitchen. We were so desperate to do it all ourselves, but it'd be a lot easier if you got a joiner. It can save you so much money.'
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