B8 Kitchens & Bedrooms was conceived as result of wanting to do things differently. Rather than overwhelm our customers with a huge showroom that will quickly become outdated, we use technology to help our customers better understand their space and visualise their kitchen. Not only do we know this helps our customers to make better decisions, but it keeps our overheads low. We pass those savings on directly to our customers. Better quality, better service, lower cost. We like to keep things simple.
With that being said, we also understand that a kitchen is an investment, and seeing doors, worksurfaces and handles is an important factor in making decisions. We wanted to create a space to where our customers can experience our range in person, but that complements our company philosophy. The B8 Design Hub was born.
Initially, our plan was to launch the Design Hub in the summer, but given the huge demand that we’ve experienced since launching B8, we’ve decided to bring our opening date forward. Our aim is to open on the 12th April and welcome customers as the UK lockdown starts to lift.
From today, that gives us 3 weeks, or 13 working days to launch. We wanted to share our process from concept, to design to preparation and fit. Here’s where we’re up to so far.
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Hours
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The Existing Room
The room we are transforming into the B8 Design Hub is a the front of the workshop, with high ceilings and plenty of natural light. We’ve removed all existing units when (with the exception of the sink) and so you can see below the canvas we are starting with.
Planning the Transformation
We worked closely with the amazing showroom team at PWS Distributors to develop a couple of initial concept designs – you can see each design below.
Design 1
Design 2
Although we love the space created in the second design, we ultimately felt that the reception desk was too formal for what we want to achieve. Equally, we love the curved quartz worksurface in Design 1. It’s both a beautiful feature and a great space to lay out samples within the natural light that beams through the window. This design has everything we are looking to achieve for our customers, and so we’re settled on building the showroom based on Design 1.
Finalising the details
So now we know what we want the Design Hub to look and feel like, now it’s a case of finalising the styles and surfaces. We’ve chosen to go for modern slab door in graphite, with matt black bar handles. The dark units and doors are off-set with the beautiful Strada quartz worktop is Calacatta Silver. The veining of the quartz is a super moden but high end finish.
To achieve the Herringbone effect on the walls, we’ve chosen a laminate flooring in Grey Herringbone effect, that we will fit directly to the wall around the window, and the wall opposite. Finally, the back wall will be fully panelled in graphite MFC board, with a screen set back into the panelling.
Door Style
Cabinet Colour
Door Handle
Wall Panelling
Flooring
Work Surface
Prep work starts
With the design finalised and deadline looming, the room needs to be prepped.
- The mains wires that run in front of the walls are removed and brought back up through the ceiling and placed on the opposite side of the wall, in the workshop.
- The window surrounds, doors and frames are all painted in graphite oil-based paint.
- The floor needs to be clean and free of any dust or particles that would be visible underneath the laminate.
- The sink needs to be capped off to make way for the display units.
