They’re both arty, gregarious and love to cook almost as much they love their home town of Willunga, where they’ve been a part of the community for 40 years. So, when Deb retired after 27 years as arguably the Fleurieu’s – if not one of Australia’s – most successful real estate agents, she immediately found herself in a real estate dispute a lot closer to home. You see, her partner, Rob (a.k.a Barty) loves nothing more than to release his day’s pent-up energy in a welter of culinary passion. Unfortunately, in their busy, old kitchen, there just wasn’t enough space for the two of them. Something had to give. But with an intervention from SpaceCraft, we’re very pleased to report it was the kitchen and not the relationship.

Deb’s problem, if you could call it that, is that Barty is actually a very accomplished cook. After all, this is a man who’s won the Blinman camp-oven cooking competition – twice – beating Australia’s best and brightest in the hot, sweaty arena of outback cook-offs. Apart from being a master of smoking and marinating, his slow-cooked rabbit in French mustard is a signature dish that has grown men salivating and rodents trembling.

Mind you, Deb’s a dab hand herself in the kitchen with her specialities being fish and Thai curries. The real problem here was how to create more real estate for this ex-agent and her Barty beau to share. Over the last decade, Deb had been collecting glossy mags and marked out the kitchens she loved. When she finally sat down to scrutinise the details, it turned out that her bookmarked ‘best’ were all built by just one company. Blushingly, we have to report they were all ours. And that’s handy, seeing our Strathalbyn joinery is so close to Willunga. (Certainly closer than the fancy Sydney factories in those mags…) Just to confirm her choice, Deb rang a real estate colleague, Sally in Strathalbyn, to suss us out and it turned out we’d built her kitchen, which she was very effusive about. You’d have to say it was meant to be.

When Nathan called in to look over the old kitchen, he found a space that was busier than Rundle Mall, piled high with cooking implements, books and stuff. We could immediately tell Deb and Barty aren’t into minimalism. But they sure needed some storage ideas that would still reflect their warm, characterful, generous style. Nathan summarised the brief as requiring something “timeless and seamless”. Deb and Barty threw themselves into the exercise whole-heartedly, bringing hand-drawn plans reflecting 20 years’ worth of pent-up ideas and exuberance. What they wanted to do was extend the open plan galley kitchen/ dining area to create more room to entertain with a long island bench and a large walk-in pantry. Behind the back wall, they then wanted to create a linen press and utility store for brooms and many – many – other things. One really nifty idea was to create a filing cabinet-style drawer for welcome new recipes and the not-so-welcome bills.

The only real problem for us (apart from incorporating all these ideas) was to do it all in the time available before Christmas. Ho, ho, ho… As Deb was having trouble finding a builder, our little Christmas gift was suggesting they speak to Todd from Dellatorre Constructions. After proving his reliability by responding to their call promptly, he was awarded the job and got stuck in soon after. For our part, we managed to get all the joinery done before the big man in red made his rooftop landing but the benchtops, alas, were out of our hands. Being their normal accommodating selves, Deb and Barty were happy to wait and the result was certainly worth it.

Timeless: tick. Seamless: tick. We think we nailed it. And Deb and Barty are certainly happy. Basically, Nathan has created a modern industrial design crossed with an earthy country feel. Think barn conversion and you’re not far off.

First, you start with a muted palette that makes you feel instantly relaxed and right at home. Add warm wormy chestnut solid timber 10 centimetres thick for the island bench (country) abutting the thinner Neolith basalt black work tops, all perfectly mitred (industrial). Floating shelves add country warmth for displaying the stuff you want to see, offset by industrially inspired mesh overheads in gunmetal grey with a simple push-open mechanism to hide the stuff you don’t want to see.

There’s a generous walk-in pantry with a sliding barn door (country) and a mesh insert with custom timber handle (industrial). See? It all goes together like… Deb and Barty. The layout is perfectly practical with storage aplenty: a place for everything and everything in its place. One final note you may consider: to make sure all the surfaces painted in two-pack will endure the work of these two passionate cooks and their heavy metal cooking sessions, we gave them a protective clear coating. When Barty brings out the cast iron, it’s not just the rabbits that are scared.

To celebrate the new kitchen, the first thing Deb made was an osso bucco. Squisito! When asked what the secret was to her cooking, she simply said, “Share the love and always add red wine”. We’re certainly not going to argue with that philosophy.