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Kitchen of the Week: At Home with the Ultimate Minimalists, the Creators of Cereal Magazine

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Kitchen of the Week: At Home with the Ultimate Minimalists, the Creators of Cereal Magazine

January 31, 2019

If Cereal, the travel and style magazine, were an actual cereal, it would be an exquisitely simple concoction—the result of an around-the-world exploration of flavors and textures, arrestingly packaged in shades of pale. Aesthetics matter a lot to Rosa Park and Rich Stapleton, the publication’s founders who spend half the year on the road in search of their particular brand of minimalist cool. The success of the indie magazine has led to Cereal city guides, a consulting agency, and an about-to-launch art gallery called Francis. Rosa oversees the company’s editorial direction; Rich, an accomplished photographer, sets the visual identity; and everything they produce is quietly—and exactingly—beautiful.

And so it makes sense that the 20-year-old kitchen in their apartment in Bath, England, required a redo. “It was very green, mint green to be specific,” says Rosa of the existing galley. “When I first visited, I remember seeing the motley tiles and the clunky carpentry. It felt dark and cramped and the intense greens made the narrow space feel even narrower.” Suffice to say the wrongs have been righted.

(N.B.: We featured the couple’s former apartment in Bath a few years back; head to At Home with Rosa Park of Cereal Magazine for a full tour.)

Photography courtesy of deVol.

rosa and rich like coming home to calm and quiet, which is why they&#8\2\17 17
Above: Rosa and Rich like coming home to calm and quiet, which is why they’re based in Bath. (She was born in Seoul and raised in Vancouver and he’s from a UK military family. They met as grad students at the University of Bristol.) Their flat is set in a classic Georgian building and they turned to deVol for their upgraded galley: “Using the city as our main inspiration, we wanted a classic English design with a modern touch.”

As with all compact kitchens, determining the working flow was the biggest challenge. DeVol’s design team helped figure out placement: there’s even a hidden combination washing machine and dryer, a microwave tucked in a corner by the entry, plus a breakfast bar for two. The cabinets and cupboards are from deVol’s Real Shaker Kitchen line and are painted Mushroom, a shade the company describes as “a timeless beigey color, neither too yellow nor too gray.” The new floor is engineered oak, and the walls are in Farrow & Ball’s Cornforth White, one of our Architects’ Favorite Warm Grays. “We entertained going with a a navy or charcoal gray, but the space is too small, so we went with light neutrals” says Rosa. “We wanted to make sure all the design and color choices allow it to feel bigger, brighter, and taller.”

rosa and rich each brought their own concerns to the remodel: &#8\2\20;i&#x 18
Above: Rosa and Rich each brought their own concerns to the remodel: “I needed to make sure we had ample storage, because I’m a neat freak,” Rosa told us. “Rich saw to it that we had all the appliances we’d need.”

Shown here: an integrated Smeg range and induction stovetop paired with a stainless steel exhaust hood. The freestanding fridge is a Bosch.

a caesarstone counter with built in drainboard adds subtle color and textu 19
Above: A Caesarstone counter with built-in drainboard adds subtle color and texture to the space. (Read about the pros and cons of the popular countertop material in Remodeling 101: 7 Things to Know about Engineered Quartz.)  DeVol supplied the undermount sink and the faucet, as well as the cabinet’s simple painted wood knobs and the bin pull for the dishwasher.
one of our favorite details is the couple&#8\2\17;s use of an s hook for ha 20
Above: One of our favorite details is the couple’s use of an S hook for hanging sink tools: see Aha! Hack: A No Drill Storage Solution. “That hook is one of the only details that we kept from our kitchen in our old place,” says Rosa.

Her secret to a clutter-free kitchen? “Clean every single day and put things away: once you’re done with your meal, the kitchen should look like you didn’t just cook. People think I’m crazy but I love cleaning. I’m like Monica from Friends; let’s just say I hoover my Hoover.”

the breakfast bar is set at the window end of the counter and furnished with a  21
Above: The breakfast bar is set at the window end of the counter and furnished with a pair of deVol Bum Stools. “Rich cooks and I clean,” says Rosa. “When Rich is away on a shoot, I often eat cereal for dinner.” (Fittingly for a writer, her current go-to is Alphabites.)

The couple display a few favorite ceramics on the top shelf.  In the glass jar lineup: short and long grain rice, couscous, quinoa, chickpeas, pine nuts, and sugar. For making coffee, they use a coffee bean grinder and Kinto stainless steel filter: see 10 Easy Pieces: Glass Coffee Pour Overs.

the wall hung radiator is painted the same cornforth white as the walls. a loca 22
Above: The wall-hung radiator is painted the same Cornforth White as the walls. A local curtain maker stitched the Roman shade in a French linen, which Rosa points out, is in a “Bath stone hue” to match the view out the window.

Galley kitchens are all about compact efficiency. Here are three more standout examples:

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