There is a particular kind of London flat that torments its owners. It has the bones, the ceiling height, the industrial windows, the sense that something extraordinary is lurking inside, and yet, every morning, it greets them with magnolia walls and laminate flooring. Potential, cruelly withheld.

The industrial kitchen is, at this point, the most coveted and most frequently botched aesthetic in British residential design. Type the phrase into any interiors platform and you will be rewarded with thousands of images: matte black cabinetry, exposed metals, raw materials, dramatic lighting. You will also, if you look closely, notice how many of them feel slightly wrong. Too dark. Too hard. The kind of kitchen you'd admire in a photograph and find quietly exhausting to actually cook in.