Cooking and eating are an essential part of human interaction, family and social life. The kitchen is the focal point of any family home and for me brings back warm memories of childhood. Comforting smells wafting from the stove, early baking experiences, licking cake mixture off a wooden spoon, flour strewn over the kitchen table. When we first moved into our house the kitchen was enclosed, dark and dingy, our first thoughts were to take the dividing walls down and open it up into one communal living space with a view into the garden.

Although the room has 3 distinctive parts, the dining/homework /painting and drawing area, the cooking area and the relaxing/lounging area, the use of low level furniture holds it together.

In the dining area - we have interesting nick knacks picked up from our travels and the children's artwork up on the walls, we have shelves with my parents old storage jars (Habitat circa 1960 original labels intact) and a massive calendar so we can keep up with the family's activities.

The cooking area – is very functional with lots of utensils on display rather than hidden away in cupboards (much to our toddler's delight!). The sideboards resemble furniture and we have avoided overhead cupboards so it doesn’t look like a traditional kitchen.

The lounging/relaxing area - adjacent to the cooking area we have a large old sofa, an armchair and an ancient old telly, the French doors look out to the onto the garden.

Now I love the fact that my eldest daughter can be colouring on the kitchen table, I can be cooking dinner and my youngest can be playing with her toys in the living room and we are all together, sharing the same space. Equally if we have friends over for lunch or dinner the cook is not hidden away and can remain a part of the social occasion.

Our top tip for time saving – we have always thought if we re-designed our kitchen we would buy two slim line dishwashers and plumb them in next to each other. By alternating the washes you never need to actually put things away!