10-05-2025
This is the best kitchen in Wales
This is the best kitchen in Wales
It's an award-winning stunner and designer Dorian is happy to share its secrets to help inspire you to create your own version
This award-winning kitchen diner can inspire you to give yours a luxury makeover using some clever design tips
(Image: Project One / Matt Cant Photography )
Has the idea of a perfectly designed kitchen ever preoccupied your thoughts? If that is the case, this luxury kitchen hiding somewhere within the suburban streets of Cardiff is going to keep you awake at night.
Are you regularly looking at gorgeous kitchens online with the idea of finding inspiration and maybe a few clever ideas to potentially pinch for your own space? Then surely the kitchen crowned the best in Wales in 2025 in the Federation of Master Builders (FMB) Cymru annual awards can help get your creative juices flowing?
Packed with design ideas and luxury additions this visually stunning and yet ultra-practical kitchen diner might even help you produce your own slice of luxury if you don't have the budget to employ multi award-winning, Penarth-based design and build company Project One. For more property stories sent to your inbox twice a week sign up to the property newsletter here.
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The kitchen had to reflect the needs of the client including a breakfast bar
(Image: Project One / Matt Cant Photography )
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But creating such a stunning space that resulted in the kitchen winning the FMB award, and now being entered into the FMB national UK competition, is a huge undertaking that founder and director at Project One Dorian Bowen says took a year just to design, plan and evolve into the space the delighted homeowners describe as 'incredible'.
There's much to consider about creating your perfect space, including any structural work and building elements to a project as well as the finished visual look and atmosphere of the space, but Dorian says the starting point is to think about you, your life, and how you want to use the space.
He explains: "Think about what you need - so for me I know I need a a Quooker tap, two Gaggenau ovens, and one of them with a pizza stone in because I love cooking pizza, pizza night is a regular thing, if people are coming over we'll be having pizza - so that's really important for me.
The use of different materials and textures was key to the design
(Image: Project One / Matt Cant Photography )
"The other main thing that I need is being able to interact with my family while I'm cooking, so I need a kitchen that connects spaces together so we can meet and eat as a family, as a community, as a unit in a space that offers an amazing experience, so that I want to be in it again.
"Then comes the aesthetic, so my kitchen doesn't have any cabinets. I've got a huge island and then lots of hidden wall storage. The whole island is open so I can see everything and get to everything while I'm cooking and everything else is hidden behind doors - it's all designed in a way that considers 'where do I want to grab things from?'"
Dorian thinks a kitchen should be about what you actually need and what the space will give you but also about expressing yourself after you've had time to research and fully plan how the room will work for you.
The ceiling has visual interest but practical elements too, such as the plaster detailing on the boxed in steel beams
(Image: Project One / Matt Cant Photography )
He says: "T ake your time and do your research. This kitchen took a year to design and plan and went through constant evolution. Don't try and do it all at once, put time into it, think about things and do it in stages - so do the layout, then at another time work on the elevations, then think about the lighting, and then think about colours and textures."
While many people are delighted with a standard kitchen from a national brand, with the substantial amount of inspiration to explore online via Pinterest, interior websites and social media, there's never been a better or easier time to make your kitchen reflect your personal style.
Dorian says: "I would suggest you customise, at least think about it. If you're buying a new kitchen, think what can I do to it - is there a section where I can put a different door on, is there a section I can put mirrors on, what can I physically do to it? Maybe think outside the box if you want to make it more individual, especially when it comes to surface materials.
The dining area is connected to the kitchen not just physically but visually too through use of materials, shapes, colours and the flow of the curved wall.
(Image: Project One / Matt Cant Photography )
"W here can you add elements of fun, function, and design? Express yourself! T rends are for t-shirts, if you want an eternal kitchen do the Fleetwood Mac thing and 'go your own way'. Kitchen trends are there literally to keep people buying and updating."
Looking at the award-winning kitchen is a feast for the eyes as well as a place to create delicious meals, with so many elements to find and admire including the use of seven materials to create texture - from reflective to matt, natural to metallic.
The use of curves is one of the elements of design that Project One likes to favour as a practical solution to eliminate hard edges and angles and in this kitchen you'll see it echoed throughout the space - the wall, the table, the island unit, even within the ceiling design.
Lighting is of course key in a kitchen space and Dorian suggests thinking of the layers as going back to how people used to live, relying on sunlight for the overall light, moonlight for the mood, and fire to illuminate nearby tasks.
Dor ian suggests that if possible investing in a feature light to add a stand-out statement to the space will add an extra layer of interest, and in this space it's a Lee Broom designed structure hanging over the dining table that Project One customised by changing the base that attaches the light to the ceiling from plain to mirrored.
Thought was given to how the kitchen connects to other spaces including the garden
(Image: Project One / Matt Cant Photography )
The space of course needs to be attractive but for Dorian what makes this kitchen a higher level of design for him is its usability - it's a practical space that can be used without any worries about damaging anything. He says they design kitchens so they are 'bomb proof' and the usability is high.
Dorian says: "We've used Rimex not brass on the kitchen island as it is very hardwearing, it's a synthetic brass that cannot stain, never needs to be treated and will never tarnish, it will always look like brass. T he kitchen doors are made from hotel standard Italian hardwood and much of the design is not interlocking so you can take a section out and replace it."
The curved wall hides a door to the utility room plus a bar area handily placed near the dining area and sunken into the wall.
(Image: Project One / Matt Cant Photography )
Dorian says that design can also, of course, be used in a thoughtful one to create visual interest, connect elements within a space but crucially solve problems too.
The kitchen diner build required a significant amount of steelwork to support the upper floor but instead of simply boxing in the new beams the team created a vertical plasterwork design that mimics that of the slatted wall, creating a relationship between these two elements of the design and ensuring the ceiling area had added visual interest.
The slatted, curved wall is not there just to look amazing but it is practical too, hiding an integrated door that leads to the secret utility room as well as a home to a bar area sunken into the wall around the corner from the kitchen and handily positioned next to the dining area.
It's this connection of spaces that Dorian says is also important - how does your kitchen space relate to the rest of your home and that successful design is also thoughtful as to how you use the space during the day, evening and even at night.
Statement lights in both zones ensure the ceiling is incorporated into the design scheme
(Image: Project One / Matt Cant Photography )
He says: "The kitchen design was driven towards family interaction so at the island you've got the seating section so while you're cooking you can chat to the family, and then in terms of the wider space you've obviously got the dining section that leads out onto the garden patio.
"Then segregated away from the kitchen so you can't see it at all times is the bar area. So if you're cooking breakfast you're not looking at alcohol but if you have people around for dinner and they're sat around the big table they're close to the bar section.
"There's the hidden door to the utility room and while you're in the kitchen you can open the double doors and you've got seamless access into the cinema room, so you can have the kids sitting on the sofas watching TV and you can open the sliding doors while you cook or have a drink from the bar. So think about how your kitchen connects to other spaces in your home."
The room is now going to represent Wales in the UK Federation of Master Builders' awards final
(Image: Project One / Matt Cant Photography )
Dorian and the team at Project One are thrilled at winning the FMB Cymru award for best kitchen in Wales 2025 and are excited to be representing the nation at the national FMB competition in September. He says: "For us this is not a job, it's a dedication and it's a choice that we've made that we put before other elements of our life and so it is really nice to put so much of yourself into something and to have it recognised by your contemporaries and to have it also acknowledged that not only have we designed it really well but we've also built it really well - it's about as good as it gets."
That is echoed by the anonymous owners of Wales' best kitchen who, Dorian says, were mesmerised by their new kitchen diner when it was finally revealed and are 'over the moon with the award win' and that 'every person who visits wants one' and using the design as inspiration and using some of the ideas Dorian has highlighted, maybe they can create their own version of Project One luxury.
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