The Kensington

Because of what a sequenced run looks like. Veneer is sliced from one log, so a wall of cabinetry can carry a single continuous figure, mirrored at the centre line and running on across appliance doors and returns. Solid timber cannot do that, because boards from the same tree vary once they are sawn thick. Veneer is also more stable across a heated room with a lot of glass. If you want the honesty of solid timber and marks that sand out, that is our The Scandi, and we would say so.

Yes, and it is the way this range usually runs. We take the architectural drawings, survey the room ourselves, and issue SolidWorks production drawings for comment before anything is machined. RAL and NCS references come straight off the schedule and we spray to them here. Where a detail on the drawings cannot be built as drawn — a shadow gap that will not hold, a stone overhang without support — we raise it at drawing stage with a proposal, not on site with a problem.

We remake it. Every project keeps its drawing set, its colour reference and, on veneered work, the balance of the flitch we bought for it, held here. That means a replacement front can be matched years later, which is the whole reason we buy the veneer in one go rather than by the sheet. On a sprayed front the match is straightforward. On veneer, be aware that a new leaf will be lighter than a front that has had five years of daylight, and it will take a season or two to catch up.

Yes. Everything is made in our Mickfield workshop, and the people who made it are the people who fit it. There is no local subcontract fitting team, which is the usual weak point on a job a long way from the maker. We work in the city regularly, travel nationally, and crate and install abroad where the project justifies it. Installation is three to seven days on site for most kitchens. For overseas work we survey in person before manufacture rather than working from drawings alone.

From £45,000. What moves the number most in this range is the veneer and the degree of integration: a sequenced flitch of figured walnut across eight metres, with fridge, freezer and dishwasher behind matching fronts, is a different proposition from a sprayed run in one colour. The design fee is £500 and it comes off the price in full when you order. You get a fixed quote before any timber is cut. Changes made before manufacture cost nothing; changes after machining cost money, and we give you the figure before we start rather than afterwards.

Fourteen to twenty weeks from brief to installation, and three to seven days on site. The drawing stage is longer than clients expect, because handleless is a tolerance problem before it is a design decision and the room has to be surveyed and modelled properly before anything is machined. Sprayed panels are finished flat, cured and racked here rather than touched in on site, and curing cannot be compressed. Stone is templated after the cabinets are in. If you are working to a completion date, tell us at the first meeting and we will be honest about it.

Book-matched leaves are opened like the pages of a book, so each pair mirrors the one before and the figure makes a symmetrical pattern — strong, and best used on a single feature such as an island end or a tall bank. Slip-matched leaves are laid in the same orientation one after another, which repeats the figure without mirroring it and reads quieter over a long run. Sequenced simply means the leaves stay in the order they came off the log across the whole room, including across appliances and returns. We draw it with every leaf numbered.

Yes, and a good proportion of this range is sprayed colour rather than timber. Little Greene, Farrow & Ball, a mix made for the project, or a RAL or NCS reference taken straight off the architect’s finishes schedule, in matt, satin or gloss. Panels are sprayed flat, cured and racked in our own booth. Colour and veneer are frequently mixed in one room — a sprayed perimeter with a veneered island, or veneered tall units against a sprayed working run — and that is usually the arrangement that stops a large kitchen feeling like a showroom.

3mm, consistent, and that figure is the whole argument. A 3mm gap will report a wall 6mm out over three metres and a floor that falls away under an island, which is why we survey the room, model it in 3D in SolidWorks, machine on CNC for repeatable tolerance and scribe on site. Where the building genuinely cannot hold a tolerance, we say so at the drawing stage and design the gaps to absorb it — a wider reveal at a return, a scribe panel, a break in the run. What we will not do is promise a gap the site cannot deliver.

Ten years on our cabinetmaking, joinery and installation. If a joint opens, a panel delaminates or a carcase fails, we come and put it right. There is a six-month visit to adjust doors and drawers once the house has settled around the kitchen, which matters especially here, because on a handleless kitchen a door that has dropped half a millimetre is visible from the doorway. We keep parts for life, so hinges, runners and servo units can be replaced years later without changing the kitchen.

The same construction as every other range we make. Cabinet-grade veneered ply on a high-grade birch ply core, solid backs, dovetailed drawer boxes, and Blum and Häfele runners, hinges, servo and push-open hardware. The reason to say so plainly is that a great deal of handleless kitchen furniture at this price is a good-looking front on an ordinary box, and the box is the part that decides whether the kitchen is still square in fifteen years. You are welcome to come to Mickfield and open the back of one before you commit.

Calacatta, Statuario, Carrara and Belgian Black in marble, honed, polished or leathered, where the room can accept that marble will etch and patinate. Dekton, Silestone, Caesarstone and Sensa where a long span has to behave and the household will not tolerate a mark. Mixed runs — a stone island, a timber return, a steel splashback — are common in this range and are detailed at the joins and the overhangs on the drawing rather than resolved on site. We template, transport, fit and seal with our own people after the cabinets are in.

Yes, and in this range they usually are. Fridge and freezer columns behind veneered or sprayed doors, wine cabinets, flush dishwashers, and extraction resolved into the ceiling or a run of joinery rather than hung on the wall. Every housing is drawn around the specific appliance from its own dimensioned sheet, with the clearances the manufacturer requires, so give us the final appliance schedule as early as you can. A late substitution to a different model is the commonest cause of a change after machining, and it is the one that costs real money.

Sequenced veneer is a closed set, and we would rather you heard that now. Extend the kitchen in eight years and the new fronts will not match the old ones, because the log is gone. We mitigate it two ways: we buy the flitch for a project in one purchase and store the balance here, and where an extension is a real possibility we will design the room so the new work reads as a deliberate separate element rather than a failed match. A sprayed colour scheme does not have this problem, and that is sometimes the deciding argument.

No, but this range suits a project that has one. It is at its best where there is an architect or an interior designer, a finishes schedule and a contractor who will hold a tolerance, because that is the context in which 3mm shadow gaps and sequenced veneer actually deliver. We are comfortable working directly to a client’s brief, and equally comfortable being one consultant among several, working to a drawing set and an issue schedule. If you are working with a designer, we would rather be in the conversation early than be handed a fixed layout late.

Yes, the same benches and the same people. Yacht joinery is where the tolerance argument in this range comes from: a fit-out that has to hold its reveals in a structure that flexes teaches you a good deal about how to build cabinetry for a house. Practically, it means we are used to full-size setting out, veneer sequencing over long runs, and working to a marine-grade finishes and weight specification. It also means we are used to crating and shipping finished joinery, which is why we can install away from Suffolk and overseas without subcontracting it.

Yes. Our own team templates, transports, fits and seals — three to seven days on site for a kitchen. On a handleless kitchen this is not a preference, it is the whole job: the gaps we spend the drawing on are made or lost in the scribing, and a third-party fitter working to a delivery note has no stake in a 3mm reveal. Where we install away from the workshop or overseas, crating, freight, insurance and documentation are priced inside one contract rather than left to you to organise.