Kitchens Cotgrave
Cotgrave’s kitchens divide by about sixty years. The estates built for the colliery have square, separate kitchens with a door to the hall and another to the garden. The housing built on and around the former pit site since it closed mostly has an open-plan kitchen-diner already.
We design and fit both from our showroom on Derby Road in Stapleford, twelve miles west, about twenty-seven minutes.
The pit housing
Square kitchens, roughly three metres by three, with the dining room next door. Functional, plain, and usually unchanged since they were built.
The standard project is opening the two rooms into one. That wall is often load-bearing, so it means a steel and a building control application through Rushcliffe Borough Council. It is a genuine cost and it belongs in the budget at the start — it is the single most common thing people underestimate on this housing.
Traditional Kitchens Cotgrave
Traditional Kitchens
Cotgrave Nottingham
Done, it gives you the run length for a full galley plus a peninsula, which is normally what people had in mind when they started.
The substantial postwar estate housing put up for the colliery was built quickly and to a pattern. Rooms are square and sensible, ceilings are a reasonable height, and the kitchens are usually a defined room rather than part of anything open.
The pattern-building is an advantage. Walls tend to be straighter than anything in the older village core, so a run of traditional cabinetry sits cleanly without much scribing, and the setting-out is predictable.
Around the original village the stock is older and less regular, and it wants a different approach, shorter runs, a dresser rather than a continuous wall line, and a tolerance built in at each end.
Brecon suits it. Brecon Basalt Mist is the quieter option where a room has limited light, and it does not fight the brick.
Most of the money in a kitchen is visible, and most of the durability is not. Our carcasses are 18mm throughout rather than 15mm with an 18mm front edge, and the backs are rebated rather than pinned on.
It matters when a full pan drawer is loaded, and it matters when a worktop is carrying the weight of a stone.
Modern Kitchens Cotgrave
Modern Kitchens
Cotgrave Nottingham
Where the wall stays, the kitchen is workable but tight. One full run down the longer wall with tall units at one end for the oven and fridge, and a shorter run opposite, uses the space better than trying to get units on all three walls.
The back door in these houses usually opens into the kitchen, and it claims the corner it swings into — often the only place a tall cupboard or the boiler could have gone.
The recent building on the former colliery site is modern stock in the fullest sense: open-plan at the back, good ceiling height, large glazing and a kitchen that was designed as a living space rather than a service room.
Here the design question is zoning rather than storage. Where the cooking, the washing and the sitting happen has more effect on how the room works than how many cupboards you get in.
In an open-plan room, putting the ovens, the fridge and the larder into one continuous tall bank on a single wall keeps everything else low. The result is a room with one working wall and a lot of clear space, rather than cabinetry all the way round.
It is the layout that makes modern rooms feel deliberately designed rather than filled in.
Large glazing changes what a colour does. Amaro White Gloss and Selter Lagoon Mist lift a room with a lot of north light, while Levanto Graphite and Bowland Metallic Slate can take the strong south light without glaring.
In Frame Kitchens Cotgrave
The newer housing on the former pit site
Higher ceilings, bigger glazing, open plan from the outset. These take an island comfortably, and they are where a vented cooktop is worth considering — extraction built into the hob rather than a canopy over the island, keeping the sightline across the room clear.
An island needs about a metre of clear floor all round, more like 1.2 metres on the working side if two people cook at once. Worth checking against the actual room before it goes on a drawing.
We fit Neff appliances including the venting hobs.
Doors and colour
Painted shaker covers most of it.
The pit-housing kitchens often have one window and limited light, where a pale finish goes flat — Colbeck Heritage Green and Georgian Thicket hold their depth. The newer open-plan rooms carry pale better, so Denton Porcelain Cashmere and Clarkwell Light Grey Graphite both work.
Zagen and Cameo cover the handleless end. Warwick is the in-frame range, with the door set inside the cabinet frame rather than on the face.
From Cotgrave it is a straightforward run across to Stapleford. Parking on site at Derby Road.
Sixteen ranges across kitchens and bathrooms, with the doors hung and the drawers working. Finishes that look identical in a brochure rarely look alike in the room.
On the older village stock in particular, where the gas and the waste currently run decides what a layout can cost. We establish that before designing, not after.
Cotgrave is Rushcliffe. Structural openings go through building control. On the newer colliery-site housing there may also be estate management conditions worth checking.
Kitchens Gallery
Twenty-seven minutes out
Derby Road, Stapleford, NG9 7AD. Parking on site.
Painted doors photograph badly — greens read blue on a screen and matt loses its texture. Worth seeing under real light.
Call 0115 877 7595 or come and look.
