The Workshop

One building

Everything Square & True sells is made in one workshop on Stonham Road at Mickfield, twelve miles from Ipswich. Nothing is bought in as a carcass. Nothing is sent out to be sprayed. Nothing arrives on site flat-packed.

That sounds like a boast and it is really a constraint. It caps how much work we can take, it means a busy autumn shows up as a longer lead time rather than a subcontractor you have never met, and it is the reason the people who fit your kitchen are the people who made it.

Drawn twice, at two scales

Every commission is drawn in SolidWorks and SketchUp, and then drawn again at full size as a rod: a one-to-one setting-out on ply, section by section, joint by joint. Rail widths, glazing bars, hinge positions, plinth heights and the reveal around every door are decided at full size, where they are honest, rather than at 1:20 where everything looks fine.

Machining is taken from the rod, not from the screen. Nobody at the bench works from a tape measure and a printed dimension. It is a nineteenth-century habit and it is the single reason our doors sit where they are drawn.

The machines, and what they are for

A CNC for the repetitive, accurate work — carcass parts, jigs, anything where identical is better than characterful. A Felder spindle moulder for the profiles, with cutters ground to sections taken off the building itself, which is how a new larder door ends up matching an architrave cut in 1780.

The machines do not make the furniture. They prepare the parts so that the people at the benches spend their time on the joints, the fitting and the finish, which is where the money should go.

Finishing

One spray booth and one prep room. Hand-brushed work is brushed on trestles in the prep room, four coats, with the final coat cut in on site after fitting. Sprayed work goes through the booth. Timber is finished in hard-wax oil, applied and cut back three times, or French polished where the piece asks for it.

One person does all of it. That is why the sheen matches across forty doors made over five weeks, and why the man who mixed your colour is the man who touches it in on handover day.

The rest of the yard

Square & True is one of four workshops on the yard at Mickfield, alongside a bathroom company run by the same family. Fitted joinery, freestanding furniture, gun cabinets, period bathrooms — each works under its own name, sharing the machine shop, the spray shop and most of the people. Who they are and what they make is set out on the Reeve & Co Group page.

Visiting

There is no showroom. There is a working building with sawdust in it, which we think tells you more. Visits are by appointment, usually mid-morning on a weekday when there is most to see, and you are welcome to bring the architect.

You will see work at every stage: parts coming off the machines, cabinets on the benches, doors on trestles in the prep room, and something finished waiting to go out. Nothing is set up for the visit. If a door is out by half a millimetre when you are standing there, you will see somebody fix it.