Black and Herringbone Duplex

Black joinery on a warm floor is a balancing act — too much and the room reads as a showroom. Here the black is confined to the kitchen and one storage wall, and everything else is left white, so the dark elements read as furniture rather than as decoration.

The internal glazing is steel-framed and full height, which meant the joinery either side had to align to the frame rather than to the wall. Getting a cabinet run and a window frame to share a datum is fiddly and completely invisible when it works.

The stair is steel with timber treads, open on one side, and the storage under it is built to the rake rather than boxed square.