What “bespoke” means in a kitchen
There are three tiers of “fitted” kitchen on the market. Off-the-shelf (IKEA, Howdens, Wickes): carcasses are 600mm increments, doors come in a fixed range, you make it work with fillers. Made-to-measure (Magnet, Wren, some Howdens specialist ranges): carcasses can be any width, doors are still from a fixed catalogue. Bespoke (us, deVOL, Plain English, a few hundred small London workshops): every cabinet is built to your kitchen, every door is sized and painted to your specification.
The price step from off-the-shelf to made-to-measure is roughly 1.5–2×. The step from made-to-measure to bespoke is another 1.5–2×. Most of our kitchen clients have done one of the first two before and found the limits. The reasons they come to bespoke are usually one of: (a) the room is an unusual shape that off-the-shelf can’t fit; (b) they want a door style or finish that isn’t in any catalogue; (c) they’re paying twice in their lifetime for a kitchen and want the second one to be the last.
The dominant door style in our portfolio
About 75% of the kitchens we build are painted shaker — five-piece frame-and-panel doors in a colour the client picks at the design stage. Of those, roughly half are “standard shaker” (door sits on the front of the carcass) and half are “in-frame shaker” (door sits inside a separate face frame, with a small shadow gap around it). In-frame is more material and more workshop time — typically 20–30% more expensive — but it gives the unmistakable handmade-English look that off-the-shelf can’t replicate.
The remaining 25% of our kitchen work splits across flat-slab modern (typically painted or veneered), tongue-and-groove (a country-cottage idiom), and the occasional bespoke-pattern door (Georgian-frame, plain-fronted with bevelled detail, etc.).
Where the money goes in a bespoke kitchen quote
For a £15,000 painted-shaker bespoke kitchen, the rough breakdown is:
- Cabinet carcasses + doors (joinery): ~55% of the total. This is what we make in the workshop.
- Worktops (quartz or granite, typical room): ~15–20%. Itemised separately; we manage the templating and fitting but the stone is supplied by a fabricator.
- Appliances: ~15–20%. Always supplied by the client, we just create the cabinet openings to fit them.
- Sinks, taps, splashbacks: ~5–10%.
- Electrical and plumbing first/second-fix: ~5%. Brought in for what isn’t joinery work.
Bespoke premium hardware (boiling-water taps at £600+, Servo-Drive bin pull-outs, integrated cooler drawers) sits on top of the above as itemised additions.
The kinds of kitchen we don’t take on
Two categories where we’ll recommend a different supplier.
Very small, very budget-driven briefs. If the total budget is sub-£8,000 and the room is a standard rectangular kitchen, Howdens or IKEA Metod with a quality installer will give you a better outcome per pound than a bespoke kitchen at the bottom of our range. We’ve recommended that route enough times to be confident in it.
Commercial-grade or developer briefs. Multi-unit kitchens in flips or developments, or commercial kitchens for restaurants, need different things than what we build — heavy use durability, fire ratings on certain materials, sometimes catering-grade ventilation. There are specialists for that and they’re not us.