In a previous life, our managing director, Ellen Wundersitz, worked in one of Adelaide’s most highly awarded design studios, coordinating the creation of brand identities and ad campaigns. While that’s pretty cool, it doesn’t take too long for the deadlines and dramas to take their toll. As she’ll tell you, it’s probably more fun watching the TV series Mad Men than actually living it. Especially if, like she and Nathan, your Big Thing is the mid-century modern style that furnished the life of that show’s enigmatic adman, Don Draper.

So: how Big a Thing? Well, one way to find out is to bring us a brief that contains those three magic letters MCM because the reaction you’ll get is another three letters: OMG! We just love the chance to flex our creative muscle and muster all our 21st-century knowhow, finishes and technology to make your marvellous mid-century perfectly modern. If that’s what you have in mind, why don’t you come to our showroom and we’ll show you one we prepared earlier?

Unlike the other funky kitchen display we talked about quite recently that was playfully inspired by our fantasy client, Barbie, this one was built with real people in mind: a Mr and Mrs Wundersitz. Yes, Ellen and Nathan designed it for themselves. But not for their family home. This was to be a precursor to the kitchen they will build (at the time of writing) for their weekender in Ingoldby Road, McLaren Flat.

This honey of a home from somewhere deep in the 1970s stole their hearts and they just had to have it, restore it, spend some time in it themselves and share it with others through AirBnB. (In fact, it’s already comfortably gorgeous and you can stay there right now by visiting Ingoldby Road on Airbnb.

Now, anyone who shares Ellen and Nathan’s mid-century madness will look at that and wonder how on earth they could possibly improve on it. Well, glad you asked. The idea of the showroom display was twofold: first, to have a play with ideas that could ultimately lend themselves to the kitchen in Ingoldby Road without slavishly adhering to the necessary practicalities or individual sensibilities of that home; and second, to build a no-holds-barred, absolute knock-out MCM-styled kitchen to inspire and delight our clients.

With nothing but a blank sheet of paper, a coffee and a whirring mind, Nathan laid out the vision for this new display: to create a warm, cosy space, inspired by the 1950s’ and 1960s’ clean lines and graphic patterns. But as with every SpaceCraft kitchen, he wasn’t purely focussed on form; it also had to function impeccably. This would be the perfect example of how we can design and truly build the one-of-a-kind ideas that have become our hallmark.

Specifically, he was keen to shake up some old inhibitions and push the outside of the envelope with some kitchen right stuff. He wanted to show how the subtle addition of textures and layering can add tactile as well as visual stimulation. How custom materials add the extra to ordinary. How new technology can be used to benefit without making itself overt. And how hardware and appliances can be integrated to create a clean, seamless, user-friendly space that’s a pure joy to live and work in. In other words, the ultimate MCM SpaceCraft kitchen.

The main challenges with this job were a little unusual, simply because we had a perfect space to work with in the showroom. As a result, they were challenges we imposed on ourselves: to test our skills in design, procurement, partnerships and, inevitably, our own SpaceCraftsmanship. This kitchen had to stand up to the toughest scrutiny (i.e., yours) and convincingly demonstrate our abilities.

As just one example, Nathan decided that every tile would need to fit precisely without cutting or fudging, so the size of the benchtop had to be millimetre-perfect. Your own eyes will tell you how successful we’ve been.

The first thing that probably strikes you about the kitchen is the timber. Harking back to the ‘70s, it’s blackwood, Jim, but not as we know it. Its delicious caramel finish sets the tone, in both senses, and gives a nod to the once ubiquitous teak. We used solid blackwood for the drawer fronts (and veneers for the sides) with custom-designed timber handles, reflecting the old-school joinery you’ll find on original, hand-crafted MCM furniture. And all the glorious ribbing that creates those clean lines is solid blackwood, too. It’s not only cool; it’s calculated. We can’t tell you how long Nathan fretted over the dimensions to ensure it all fitted uniformly.

For those who were alive in the ‘70s, there’s another feature that will make you grin. Nathan has just brought back crazy paving. Except, this time, it’s on the walls, which isn’t such an off-the-wall idea when it’s rendered with such style and in one, gorgeous tone of Bodega natural stone. And, yes, it was another challenge for our stone mason to ensure he didn’t damage the joinery as he worked on it.

Moving on, your eyes may now land on those superb Inax Biyusai tiles we sourced from Artedomus that have indeed been applied to the benchtop, wall feature and window reveals with millimetre-perfect precision for a pop of colour that’s still masterfully restrained. Maybe we’ll just call it a pop-ette. The wall tiles have been finished with a curved timber edge-cap that also scoops playfully around the Coco Flip wall sconce. After all, those Mad Men may have had style but they also sure knew how to have fun.

Underpinning the timber and tiling is a good old dose of basic black. And like the little black dress, it never goes out of style. The secret is in using it sparingly and repetitively. There’s the black custom steel leg detailing fabricated by AllShapes, the laminated kicker panels that truly ground the design, the Oliveri Spectra single-bowl sink from FHS and the svelte tapware.

Right along the back counter, there’s another feature in black worth spending a little extra time (and budget) on: the beautiful Dekton top, supplied by Cosentino and fabricated by Ideal Stone. After quite a bit of research, we decided to use this material specifically because it would also allow us to add a delightful innovation: the Pitt gas burner. Instead of having a whole cooktop unit, as such, you can arrange Pitt’s individual burners anywhere you like for a strikingly clean finish. They’re so good, they almost look like a set of sculptures. Thank you to Spartan Electrical for supplying those and all the other ‘white goods’. But where are they? Good question.

By integrating appliances into the joinery, you can make a small space appear much more streamlined and larger. Believe it or not, there’s an ILVE fridge/freezer hidden in plain sight in this kitchen. As well as a double Dish Drawer from Fisher & Paykel, a Sirius rangehood (yes, we are serious) and hidden wine storage, which may or may not cause some frustration around wine o’clock.

A joyous addition, which is the throwback that needs to make a comeback, is the booth seating. Upholstered in Warwick Corey Tangerine fabric by McConnells, it’s a great place for a cuppa (or martini) whilst poring over the recipe books. Fondue? Prawn cocktails? Beef Wellington? Hmmm… some things really should stay in the past. Although, we really do love those retro timber ceiling beams, even if they did test our engineering skills to make sure they’d stay up.

The final detail that brings a smile to our faces every time is the old, authentic patterned amber glass we found and repurposed as the sliding doors for the shelving. It’s the cherry on the sprinkles on the cream on the icing of our MCM fever-dream kitchen. Cocktails, anyone?