Warmth and security from hand joinery

Iron rings on the stove, the fire crackles underneath. That's how our great-grandmothers cooked. It was hard work, but it also spread a very special feeling of warmth and security. Joiner Martin Polleross has managed to build a new, yet not modern kitchen from this feeling. It does not offer every comfort, but everything that warms the heart.

Fairytale business card

With this very special kitchen, Martin Polleross not only brings past times to life, but also a room that has been in a deep sleep for a long time. "The room in our company building in Neupölla in the Austrian Waldviertel lay unused for years. Then my daughter Franziska suggested to reinvent it as a summer kitchen, snack and meeting room," explains the joiner. But the result was much more than that: a show kitchen of a special kind, a business card for the small family business and quite simply a fairytale-like place that is second to none.

At the start of the reconstruction a special heirloom, a 200-year-old wooden ceiling which was an original piece in their house, was brushed, waxed and reinstalled in the neighbouring company building. With the exposed brick wall and stone floor, the perfect "great-grandmother's kitchen" atmosphere was created. "We removed a 300-year-old stove from another neighbouring house and set it up again in our building. Then it was time to design and manufacture the matching furniture," recalls Martin Polleross.

Antique touch from ADLER's painted kitchen 

For this purpose, alder wood from the municipal district was used which was surface-refined in a unique way. The stain is Polleross's very special mixture according to a secret recipe – a bit like from a grandmother's little recipe book. The ingredients are of course all Austrian in origin, from the Tyrolean ADLER. "I then painted the stained wood with ADLER Pigmopur in the colour shade Cremeweiß (cream-white), whereby not only spots of colour penetrate, but also a light shade of brown," explains Polleross. This creates a first touch of antiquity. The experienced joiner brushed the corners and gripping surfaces through onto the stain primer with a brushing machine and overcoated with colourless ADLER Ventopur in gloss level 50. This makes the furniture appear as though great-grandmother's copper pans are stored there.

"Of course, it's very unusual to 'ruin' a finely-honed surface by brushing, but the result speaks for itself. In addition to the very special surface with its 'used' look, the special thing about this project for me was the planning, with the many small details, the projections and setbacks and the cupboard without a back wall. All this made the production very expensive," says Martin Polleross. But it was worth it. Now when you enter this special room, you can virtually see the great-grandmother at the stove and smell the scent of the heavy pans.