Services
Fitted Kitchens
Fitted kitchens from a national retailer come out of a range: a set of standard cabinet sizes, a choice of door styles, and filler panels wherever the room refuses to co-operate. We make them the other way round — the kitchen is drawn to the room.
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Two honest options
Made for the room, or fitted properly
There are two good ways to get a kitchen, and being straight about both is more use to you than pretending there is only one.
A bespoke fitted kitchen is made to the room. Cabinet widths are whatever the wall is, not the nearest 150mm; the run ends where the wall ends rather than in a filler panel; and a chimney breast, a low beam or a window reveal that sits 40mm proud all get designed in rather than worked around. It costs more and it takes longer.
A supplied kitchen, fitted well is a perfectly good answer for most houses. Howdens, DIY Kitchens, Wren — whatever you have bought, we will install it, and the skill goes into scribing it to a room that is not square rather than into making it. Plenty of our kitchen work is exactly this, and we would rather quote it honestly than talk you into joinery you do not need.
Specification
Styles, finishes and worktops
Door styles
Shaker is the default for good reason — it suits period and modern rooms alike and it is forgiving of a wall that moves. In-frame is the more expensive, more traditional version, with the door set inside the carcass frame. Flat slab where the room is contemporary.
Finishes
Hand-painted or spray-lacquered in any colour, including matched to woodwork already in the house. Oak, ash and walnut where the timber should show. A painted kitchen can be repainted in ten years, which is a real advantage over a foil- wrapped door that cannot.
Carcasses
18mm moisture-resistant board throughout, not 15mm, and solid backs rather than a stapled panel. Under a sink or a dishwasher the base gets a moisture-resistant deck, because that is the cabinet that fails first in every kitchen.
Worktops we fit
Solid timber, laminate and compact laminate are cut, jointed and fitted by us — including masons' mitres on laminate, which is the joint that separates a good fit from a visible seam. Timber is oiled on both faces before it goes down.
Worktops we do not
Granite, quartz and Dekton are templated and installed by a stone specialist once the units are level and fixed. It is a different trade with different tooling, and a joiner having a go at a £3,000 slab is how you end up buying two.
Hardware
Blum or Hettich soft-close hinges and full-extension runners, pan drawers rated for what actually goes in them, and corner solutions that are not a carousel you have to kneel down to reach.
Older houses
Kitchens in period Wiltshire properties
A stone cottage kitchen is where a catalogue range stops being able to help. The floor falls 30mm across the room, the ceiling is 2.1 metres with a beam through it, one wall bows outward, and there is a chimney breast where the oven wants to go.
None of that is a problem for made-to-measure joinery, and all of it is a problem for standard carcasses. Worktops get scribed to the wall rather than caulked to it, plinths are cut to the floor rather than packed and hidden, and the cornice follows the ceiling it actually has. Listed buildings and conservation areas bring their own constraints, and we will flag them rather than discover them.
The process
From first visit to a working kitchen
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Free design visit
Alex measures the room, checks where the services run, and talks through how you actually cook in it. No showroom appointment and no sales script.
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Drawing and written quote
Itemised, so you can see the carcasses, the doors, the worktop and the labour separately and decide where the money goes.
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Strip out and first fix
Old kitchen out, and plumbing and electrics moved by the relevant trades before anything new goes in.
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Fit and finish
Units levelled and fixed, worktops templated and fitted, doors adjusted, and the room left clean at the end of every day.
Questions
Fitted kitchens — common questions
Do you only fit kitchens you have made?
No. Plenty of jobs are installing a kitchen someone has already bought — Howdens, Wren, DIY Kitchens, whatever it is — and that is straightforward work we are happy to price. The difference is that a bought kitchen arrives in standard sizes, so the skill goes into scribing it to the room rather than into making it.
What worktops do you fit?
Solid timber, laminate and compact laminate we cut, joint and fit ourselves. Granite, quartz and Dekton are templated and fitted by a stone specialist after the units are in — that is a different trade and pretending otherwise would cost you a worktop.
How long does a kitchen take?
A straight replacement in an existing layout is usually one to two weeks on site. Moving plumbing or electrics, taking out a wall or replastering stretches it to three or four, and those trades need booking around each other rather than all at once.
Can you match the kitchen to other joinery in the house?
Yes, and it is worth doing. If we have built a media wall or fitted wardrobes elsewhere, the kitchen can pick up the same door profile, paint colour and handles so the house reads as one thing rather than as four separate purchases.
Talk to us about your kitchen
Whether it is a bespoke build or fitting a kitchen you have already bought, Alex will come and look and price it honestly.