Before & After - T.O.M.S Place Kitchen

We think the kitchen is hands-down the most important room of any building.

Particularly in an office. It’s where people gather and connect over food, it’s where we refuel, where we break away from our desks and let our minds wonder to new places. We knew the kitchen would be an important space for the community at T.O.M.S Place - so we wanted to make it special.

After we ripped out all the cabinetry and flooring, we were able to see its full potential.

Humble beginnings. The first time we stepped into the kitchen, safe to say it had been fairly neglected by its residents (a dozen or so pigeons). Just kidding. But we found evidence of at least a small family of them.

We brought in the heritage greenery from details throughout the original building with these amazing vintage industrial lights and subway tiles. Once the bare bones were in place, we put in the important things - coffee machine, snacks, fruit bowls, cookies, toastie maker and sparkling water on tap.

The kitchen was a perfect place to celebrate the market history of the building. We got to know our friendly local fruit and veg shops pretty well as we walked up and down Sydney Road sourcing our favourite fruit and veggie boxes for this kitchen installation.

Fruit and veg boxes are so vibrant and so unique! Our legendary collaborator Dre had the tough job of choosing which boxes to display.

We decided to extend the kitchen so we had a generous space for a communal table, as well as a built-in a bench/reading nook under the stairs (doubling as storage). A high top bench would give tenants a place to perch for a quick lunch or pop-up with their laptops to do some work away from their desk.

Love our chairs? We do too. They’re all second hand, sourced from our favourite mid-century modern furniture auction house and from vintage-collectors on Facebook Marketplace.

We had so much fun layering the kitchen with fun details (like the very popular squirrel nutcracker). We aimed to make the kitchen a beautiful and functional space, but as always the proof is in the pudding. Watching tenants enjoy the space, whether popping in for a quick toastie, take time for themselves to read a book in the stair nook or making new friends over the coffee machine - says it all.