A long barn at St Hilary,
and no branches.
Four of us: two at the benches, one in the paint shop, one drawing. We have been at the same address for twenty-five years, we have never opened a second workshop, and we do not intend to.
Why half an hour matters.
Every kitchen we have made is within about thirty miles of the barn, and most are within ten. That is a deliberate limit rather than a lack of ambition. It means we can survey a room twice before drawing it without charging for a day's travel. It means the fitting team is the joinery team. And it means that when a door drops or a hinge wears in 2038, the person who made it can be there on a Tuesday morning.
It also means the kitchen you are shown is the kitchen we made. There is no gallery of other people's work on this site.
Fourteen a year, and why.
Four people making solid framed carcasses by hand, painting them properly and fitting them themselves comes to about fourteen kitchens in a year. We have been asked more than once how we would scale it. The answer is that we would have to buy carcasses in, spray instead of brush, and put a fitting subcontractor in the van — and at that point we would be a different company selling a different thing.
So the diary holds one kitchen at a time and there is usually a wait. If you are working to a completion date, tell us on the first call.
25
Years at the same benches
14
Kitchens a year, never more
26
Weeks, drawing to hand-over
0
Carcasses bought in
Who does what.
There are four of us and there have been four of us for a long time.
01
Drawing
Every room is surveyed and drawn by the same hand, at a quarter scale, on paper. If you have a question about a dimension, you are talking to the person who measured it.
02
The benches
Two joiners, both here more than fifteen years. Carcasses, doors, drawers, dressers and the awkward one-offs that make an old house work.
03
The paint shop
One person, four coats, and a fortnight of patience. Colour is mixed and matched on site against your own stone and timber.
04
Fitting
The same four of us. There is no subcontracted fitting team, which is why the diary only holds one kitchen at a time.
Thursdays,
and always tea.
We keep Thursdays for visitors so that the rest of the week stays quiet enough to work in. There is usually a kitchen part-built on the floor, samples on the bench, and the paint shop will be open unless something is drying in it.
It is a working barn down a farm lane — flat shoes, and there is a dog. Parking is on the hard standing by the gate. Give us a ring on the day if the weather is bad, because the lane floods at the bottom.
There is usually something on the bench. You are welcome to open every drawer in it.
“I came for a kitchen and got an argument about where the sink should go. They were right.”