“There’s an undeniable feel-good factor in reuse: something unloved becomes valuable again,” write Maria Speake and Adam Hills. The couple met in architecture school in Glasgow, where in the late 1980s, they watched in horror as many of the city’s Victorian tenements were razed. They’ve been neck deep in salvaged building materials ever since.
Together Adam and Maria run Retrouvius, their London-based architectural findings business. Adam hunts for castoffs and oversees a shop piled with deaccessioned museum cabinets and deep-sixed solid-wood doors. Maria heads the interior design studio specializing in clever applications for scrap.
Here at Remodelista we’re longstanding fans and students of the Retrouvius way (scroll to the end to read and see more). A while back we featured The Reclaimed Bath: 8 Retrouvius Designs; today, we’re spotlighting five Retrouvius kitchens concocted from old and new parts.
Photography courtesy of Retrouvius.
Repurposed Parquet Flooring and Old Frames in a Central London Flat
The overhead cabinet fronts are poetically made from old frames—”flipped to enjoy the narrative of their previous life.” The open shelves that extend across the door are cheeseboards: planks of wood formerly used for aging cheese. Photograph by Tom Fallon.
Vintage Interior Windows in a Converted Artist’s Studio in North London
