deVOL Kitchens Brings British Design And Craftsmanship To The Small Screen And Beyond

“I always want someone to walk in to their kitchen and feel like it’s their favorite room in the house,” says Helen Parker. As the creative director of the überpopular English kitchen furniture brand deVOL Kitchens, Helen, along with the firm’s founder, Paul O’Leary, have been enchanting viewers on their Emmy-nominated television show, For the Love of Kitchens, for the past two seasons. “You spend more time in that room than all the other rooms of the house put together,” says Paul. The pair, who are partners on and off-screen, showcase the very best of British kitchen design and craftsmanship — dovetailed cabinets, solid brass hardware and earthenware pendants — all made by artisans at Cotes Mill, the firm’s 16th-century watermill headquarters.

Season 2 spotlights the design of a kitchen in a 1790s Georgian house in Bristol which was outfitted with Shaker-style cabinets and an Arabescato marble island. “Big kitchens are tricky to get right,” says Helen. “You’d imagine that if you had all the space in the world then it’s going to be easy.” Paul adds: “It’s overwhelming to clients when they’ve got a large kitchen because there are so many options and weighing which is best is difficult, and it’s a personal thing.” Another episode features a 17th-century dairy barn conversion kitchen in Suffolk.

“It’s a prime example of loads of different materials working together beautifully,” says Helen. “A limited palette and natural materials — you can’t go wrong with that,” says Paul. Fortunately for North Americans, deVOL’s cabinets and fixtures can be shipped across the pond, plus the firm designs kitchens for Canadian and U.S. homes so you, too, can bring the deVOL look home.