Kitchen and bathroom design · Bristol
Kitchens and bathrooms, drawn slowly and fitted by hand.
Nine or ten rooms a year in painted timber, stone and tile, drawn and built from a workshop on Bristol harbour.
See recent rooms
The studio
Named after a kitchen in Cork
A two-person workshop in Redcliffe, and one designer who never quite left the bench.
I spent five years making cabinets before I drew my first kitchen, and it shows in the drawings.
Berta was my grandmother. Her kitchen in Cork was the first room I ever pulled apart, at twenty-two, badly, and most of what I believe about these two rooms started at that sink. I put my own name on nothing; the studio carries hers.
I work on nine or ten rooms a year across Bristol, Bath and the Somerset levels, and I am the person you meet at the first visit, the person who draws it and the person standing in the room when the stone goes down. Cabinets are built two streets from where I draw them. Nothing is subbed to a name you never hear.
- 11 Years
- 2 At the bench
- 96 Rooms
- 01 Working depth before looks A pantry 300mm deep is a shelf with ambitions. I draw the storage first, at the depth the jars actually need, and let the elevation follow from that.
- 02 One person, first visit to last handle I measure, draw, order, and stand in the room while it goes in. Nothing gets handed to a project manager you have never met.
- 03 Nothing specified from a screen Every stone, tile and paint is seen in your room, in your light, before it is ordered. A green that sings in a showroom can go grey under a north window.
- 04 Built to be repaired Solid drawer boxes, a worktop that can be lifted and replaced, paint that can be brushed again in ten years. The room should outlive the fashion that made it.
Recent rooms
Nine or ten a year
Each one is a single house: what it was, what went into it, and where it is.
Ashley Down
Redland Grove
Lansdown Crescent
Cotham Brow
Long Ashton Farmhouse
Chandos Road
As found
The room you already have
Almost every job starts with something dark, dated or badly planned. Drag the handle across.
What I do
Four ways to start
Ranges below include cabinetry, stone, fitting and my fee. You get a number at the first visit, not after the drawings.
Kitchens
In-frame cabinetry in painted poplar or oiled oak, stone templated off the fitted carcasses, and a plan that starts from where you put the shopping down rather than from where the island would look best.
Start here
Bathrooms and ensuites
Wet walls tiled full height, a washstand built like a piece of furniture, and the pipework drawn before the finishes so nothing has to be boxed in as an apology later.
Start here
Pantries, utility and boot rooms
The rooms that decide whether the kitchen works. Proper working depth, a lift-out shelf for the mixer, somewhere the wet coats can drip that is not the hall.
Start here
Joinery and stone, to your drawings
For architects and builders who have the room solved already. I draw, build and template; your fitter installs. Fewer weeks, lower cost, same workshop.
Start hereMaterials
Six things most of my rooms are made of
Not a mood board. These are the offcuts, in the finishes I actually order them in.
Every sample above is an offcut from a room I finished, kept on a rack in the workshop and labelled with the house it came out of. Bring your tiles, a paint card or a photograph of the light at four in the afternoon, and we will pull the drawers open.
How it goes
First visit to last handle
Four stages, seventeen weeks for a typical kitchen, and the same person at all four.
I come to the house
An hour or two in the room, measuring and asking what goes wrong in it now. You leave with a written scope and a budget range before a single line is drawn.
Drawings and a finish board
Plans, elevations and a board of the real materials. We sit with it twice. The second sitting is there so you can change your mind cheaply.
Built in the workshop
Carcasses made, doors brushed or sprayed, stone templated off the units once they stand in your room rather than off my drawing of them.
Fitted and snagged
I am on site for the fit. Handles on, silicone last, and a written schedule of everything in the room so you can order more of it in ten years.
References
Some years later
A kitchen is easy to love in week one. These are people I fitted for a while ago.
Before you call
What the first visit always starts with
Answered here so the visit can be about your room instead.
What does a kitchen actually cost?
Most of mine land between £28,000 and £60,000, including cabinetry, stone, fitting and my fee. Bathrooms start around £14,000. You get that range at the first visit, before anything is drawn - I would much rather lose the job there than halfway through it.
How long will I be without a kitchen?
Six to eight weeks on site for a kitchen, three or four for a bathroom. Nothing is stripped out until every cabinet is built and standing in the workshop, so the gap is as short as it can honestly be made.
Do I need planning permission?
Almost never for a kitchen or a bathroom. Moving a soil pipe, taking out a wall or working in a listed house is a different conversation, and I will tell you which one you are in on the first visit rather than the fifth.
Can you work with my architect or builder?
Yes, and it is often the easiest way to do it. I draw the rooms, supply the joinery and the stone, and hand your builder a set of drawings with the services marked on them where they need to be.
What if I only want the cabinetry?
That is the supply-only route. You get the drawings, the cabinets and the worktop, and your own fitter puts them in. It costs less and it works, as long as somebody competent is holding the site together.
How far will you travel?
Bristol, Bath and most of Somerset without thinking about it. Beyond about an hour, the travel starts costing you more than it is worth, and I will say so.
Showroom
Come and open a drawer
Gaol Ferry Yard, three days a week. An hour is usually enough to know.
The front of the workshop is kept as a room, not a shop. Two full runs stand in it, so you can open a drawer, put a hand on a worktop and see how a green behaves at four in the afternoon before any of it is ordered.
Where
Unit 4, Gaol Ferry Yard
Redcliffe, Bristol BS1 6TB
Open
- Thursday 10am - 5pm
- Friday 10am - 5pm
- Saturday 10am - 2pm
- Other days By appointment
Standing in the room
- Two full runs, one painted and one in oiled oak
- A working stone worktop with four edge profiles cut into it
- The offcut rack, drawers and all
- Tap sets and handles you can actually turn
Visits run about an hour. Bring plans, photographs, or a tile you already love.
Contact
Tell me about the room
A few lines is plenty. I read and answer everything myself, usually within two working days.
- Workshop
- Unit 4, Gaol Ferry Yard, Redcliffe, Bristol BS1 6TB
- Telephone
- 0117 496 0184
- Showroom hours
- Thursday to Saturday, or by appointment
- Taking on
- Kitchens from spring 2027 · bathrooms sooner
Thank you - that is with me. I will come back within two working days, usually with a couple of questions about the room.