kitchens to covet modern Touches

Cookbook author James Rich talks us through the inspiration behind his Scandi-influenced country house kitchen in his period home in Somerset

I'm James Rich, home cook, and author. I live in Somerset with my husband, Pip, dogs Henry and Ted, and cat Kiki. My rectangular kitchen has two large windows looking out over an orchard, and the dining room, utility, hallway, and snug all come off it, so it's really the heart of the home.

Our house is an 1840s 'gentleman's house' built-in bath stone, and we're fortunate to have spacious, Georgian-style rooms with tall ceilings. We love the period style of the house but wanted it to feel fresh and light, too.

Our kitchen has original flagstone flooring and an Aga, which give it a country house feel, but we've created a Scandi-inspired space to balance the traditional with the modern.

Pip and I decided to move to Somerset, where I grew up, during lockdown. In London, during the pandemic, we'd been longing for open green space. The house had been loved but was in need of some TLC and modernizing in places.

We're both keen cooks and I was starting to write my second book, Orchard, so the first job was the kitchen. The one we inherited hadn't been updated for 40 years, so there were issues with the ceiling and some walls. It was an opportunity to strip everything back and start from scratch with a blank canvas.

The only thing we kept from the original kitchen was the much-loved (but slightly battered) Aga. It had been the heart of the home, and something we couldn't bring ourselves to take out. We decided to have it refurbished by a local company that specializes in bringing country house staples back to life. We opted for grey instead of the original blue, and off it went for almost two months to be worked on while we focussed on the rest of the kitchen.