Kitchens made by the three people who come and fit them.
We have been drawing, cutting and hanging kitchens from one workshop near Watlington since 1998. Eleven a year, give or take. We have never wanted to make it twelve.
A kitchen is the only furniture in the house that has to work every single day.
Tom Ridley, at the bench since 1998Three we finished this year
Everything is cut in one building, off the Icknield Way.
There is no showroom. There is a workshop with a wood store at one end, three benches in the middle, and a spray room at the far end that used to be a milking parlour. What you order is made in that room and nowhere else.
We buy boards rather than sheets, which is slower and means we have to think about grain before we cut. It is the reason a Stile & Grain door has the figure running through it rather than stopping at the rail.
one bench
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01
Drawing
We measure the room ourselves, including the floor that is never level. You get a drawing you can hold, not a render.
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02
Cutting list
Boards are chosen off the rack and marked up for where they will end up. Doors get the best of it.
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03
Bench
Frames, carcasses, drawers. Everything is dry fitted in the workshop before a drop of finish goes near it.
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04
Fitting
The same three of us arrive with the van. Usually four days, occasionally six if the walls have opinions.
Come and see the bench before you decide anything.
Most people who ring have been thinking about it for a year. There is no hurry and there is nothing to sign. Bring the dimensions if you have them.