A Heartfelt Hub
A kitchen by Trudi Rabbitte of Rabbitte Joinery, Hawke's Bay, and a featured 2025 NKBA Excellence in Design Awards project.
A Heartfelt Hub is a kitchen designed around the way a family actually behaves. It expects people to lean, perch, unpack, help and get in the way, and it makes room for all of it.
The layout gives the cook a clear run while leaving the island free for everyone else. That single decision does more for the daily rhythm of a home than any amount of feature joinery.
Warmth is built in through material rather than colour. Timber and softened tones keep the room hospitable, and the surfaces have been chosen to look better after a decade of use, not worse.
Storage is generous and quiet. Drawers replace doors where they should, appliances step back into their own zone, and the bench returns to being a bench between meals.
A kitchen by Trudi Rabbitte of Rabbitte Joinery in Hawke's Bay, entered in the 2025 NKBA Excellence in Design Awards.
