Written from the workshop, for America.

Written from the bench in Suffolk, for people buying a kitchen in America. Not styling and not trends — the construction, the appliances, the crossing, the paperwork, and the parts of it that go wrong. Our British journal is over here; this one covers the things that only matter when the kitchen has an ocean to cross.

The constructionIn-frame, face-frame, framelessThree ways to build a cabinet, only one of which is ordinary workshop practice in England — and what the difference does over twenty years.Read this → Before we drawAmerican appliances in English cabinetryYour appliances are larger than ours and they decide the elevation. Which is why we ask what you are buying before we draw.Read this → For specifiersWhat your architect needs from us, and whenWorking with a Suffolk workshop from an American drawing board, in the order the information has to move.Read this → Being honest about itThe four things that delay an English kitchenNone of them are the making. Twenty to twenty-six weeks is a real number. What moves is everything either side of the workshop.Read this → The finishA painted kitchen in a climate that is not England’sTimber moves with the moisture in the air, and American air does more than English air. What we do about it at the bench.Read this → The rooms behind the roomScullery, butler’s pantry, mudroomThree rooms, three different jobs, and a set of names that mean different things either side of the Atlantic.Read this → A word that has driftedShaker is not a styleThe most-used word in an American showroom belongs to a religious community that would have been appalled to find it selling anything.Read this → How the trade is arrangedA designer’s kitchen, or a maker’s kitchen?In America a kitchen passes through three or four companies before anyone touches a chisel. Here it passes through one building.Read this →