Big Family, Big Style: The Grimshaws’ Kitchen in Stonelore Azzurro Volta

Finding their way to us

The Grimshaws came to Gemini Worktops the way most of our best projects start — through someone who already trusted us. “We were recommended you by my husband's work colleague, and as you were local — we like to keep things as local as we can to believe in supporting family run businesses — so we paid a visit to your showroom.” It turned out our team already knew their kitchen designer at their kitchen retailer, who'd previously worked with us too. Small industry, good company.

What struck Donna in the showroom wasn't just the welcome. “Your showroom and displays were impressive and had the right style that I was looking for, rather than the plain white or black.” She'd seen enough safe kitchens. She wanted one with a bit of nerve.

Why quartz, and why this quartz

Donna is refreshingly clear-eyed about what four tall, heavy-handed daughters and a father to match will do to a worktop. “There is not much in this world that is Grimshaw-proof,” she says — which might be our favourite line of the year. Quartz won out over laminate, wood, porcelain and marble for the simplest of reasons: it had to survive. But surviving was never going to be enough on its own. It needed to look the part too.

That's where Azzurro Volta earned its place. Drawn from our Stonelore Quartz collection and named for the ceiling paintings of the Baroque masters — deep blues entwined with gold, the kind of colour that seems to move when the light catches it — it gave the Grimshaws family a kitchen worktop with genuine presence, without tipping into a fashion that will date. “It takes it to the next level,” Donna told us. “Mine makes it stand out above any other that people have seen, however it will not go out of fashion either, as it's different but not different enough to be outdated.” That balance — bold today, timeless tomorrow — is exactly what we hope for every time someone chooses a colour like this over the expected white or grey.

Sourcing the worktop separately

Working the quartz into a kitchen already being designed by another company can sound like a headache. It wasn't, by Donna's account: sourcing the worktop separately from the rest of the renovation was, in her words, “very easy.” Three months from design to completion, start to finish — not bad going for a full redesign of a working family kitchen.

Honesty about the budget

We asked what compromises they'd made to keep the project on budget, and Donna didn't dress it up. She'd have liked a more designed edge from the standard double bevel, “but that would have cost an extra £1800 and we could not justify that unfortunately.” It's a fair trade, and a reminder that a beautiful kitchen doesn't require every option ticked — just the right ones. As for unexpected costs elsewhere: “everything was expensive, but that's how life is these days.” We'll take the honesty over the sugar-coating any day.

Asked what she'd do differently, Donna's answer had a wry sting in the tail: “nothing really, other than wait for the sale to come on.” We felt that one. It's also exactly why we let people know when a sale is coming — nobody enjoys being on the wrong side of good timing.

The people who put it in

If there's one part of the story Donna wanted to make sure we heard, it's this: “Your fitters were absolutely amazing. They were efficient, effective and creative to address a small issue that we encountered. They went above and beyond, and I can't thank them enough. Also, excellent sense of humour!” That's the bit that never makes it onto a spec sheet, but it's the bit that turns a good worktop into a good experience — and it's the part of the job our fitting teams take the most pride in.

The result

A small kitchen in a big room, built to survive a household of giants and still make visitors stop in the doorway. Azzurro Volta gave the Grimshaws exactly what Donna was after - something with real character, chosen with her eyes open, fitted by people who cared about getting it right. That's the whole job, really.