'It's all in the SLICK PLANNING'

Ohana kept clutter at bay by meticulously planning every inch of storage space in her industrial style kitchen

COME ON IN!

ABOUT ME I’m Ohana Banerjee, 45, and I live here with my husband Ben, 43, and children Anissa, 13, and Sebastian, 11, in an Edwardian five-bedroom detached house in East Sussex. We moved here in October 2010 and it is our second home together. We merged three rooms to create a kitchen, dining and living space three years after we moved here.

MY CHALLENGE Our galley kitchen was small, cold and felt cut off from the rest of the house.

MY WISH LIST We wanted to create an open-plan kitchen and living space downstairs that didn’t feel too utilitarian, where we could all be together cooking, working and relaxing. My must-haves were natural light, organisation and style.

Our first home in London was a 1970s maisonette and it taught us valuable lessons about creating a flexible living space and the importance of storage,’ says Ohana. ‘When our children were two and four, we decided to move to Lewes, East Sussex, where I grew up. We wanted a house with light and space near both the town and the countryside, so we could walk everywhere. Our mission was to apply everything we learned in our first home to our new home.

The way it was

When we made our move to the country, we chose an Edwardian house in good condition, but it was outdated and the flow of the downstairs was poor. The kitchen was at the back, in a cold area, and the living spaces were quite a distance away, so I always felt cut off from the children.

Getting started