Timber & materials
Three materials, chosen component by component for how each one moves, machines and holds a finish.
The short version
Ask most kitchen companies what their kitchens are made of and you will get one answer for the whole thing. That is a manufacturing decision, not a joinery one.
A door panel and a door frame do completely different jobs. The panel needs to sit still and take paint flat. The frame needs to carry a hinge, survive being knocked with a saucepan and hold a moulding profile crisply. A worktop needs to be touched every day for twenty years and look better for it. No single material is best at all three.
So Ollie uses three, and picks per component. It costs slightly more to buy and considerably more to think about, and it is the single biggest reason these kitchens still look right a decade later.
The best painted surface money can buy. No grain to telegraph through the topcoat, no seasonal movement, no shrinkage lines opening up along a shaker panel in February.
The cabinetmaker's secret for painted work. Fine, even texture, machines crisply, holds a moulding profile sharply and takes paint almost as flat as MDF — but with real timber strength through a rail.
Used where the timber is meant to be seen and touched. Oiled rather than painted, it earns a patina instead of wearing out — worktops, islands, open shelving and drawer interiors that get opened forty times a day.
Finishes
The finish is not a coat of paint on a door. It is the thing you will look at every morning for the next fifteen years, and it is the part most likely to be rushed elsewhere.
Every surface sanded through the grits, edges eased, grain filled where it needs it, then primed. Rushed preparation is why cheap paintwork looks cheap.
Brushed and laid off by hand in your chosen colour — Farrow & Ball, Little Greene, Mylands or a bespoke match. Multiple coats, denibbed between each.
Cabinet interiors sealed with an oil-based sealer, so spills wipe off and a slow leak under the sink does not quietly destroy a carcass.
Worktops, island tops, open shelving and drawer interiors are finished in hardwax oil rather than paint. It soaks in rather than sitting on top, so a scratch can be sanded and re-oiled in an afternoon instead of needing a decorator.
Hardware
Hinges and runners are where a kitchen quietly succeeds or fails. These are not the place to save forty pounds.
Full-extension, under-mount runners rated to real loads — so a drawer full of cast iron still glides and closes silently.
Fully adjustable in three planes, soft-close as standard. Doors that can be reset in thirty seconds when a house settles.
Aged brass, pewter, blackened iron, polished nickel or turned oak. Ollie brings samples out so you can hold them before deciding.
Pan drawers, cutlery trays, bin systems, larder pull-outs, spice racks and plate racks — made to fit rather than bought to fit.
Straight answers
It is inexpensive, but that is not the same as cheap. For a painted door panel, moisture-resistant MDF genuinely outperforms solid timber: it will not shrink across the grain in a heated room, so you never get the pale line appearing around a shaker panel in mid-winter. Nearly every high-end painted kitchen in Britain uses it for panels, including the ones costing six figures.
What matters is the grade. Standard MDF near a sink is a mistake. Ollie uses moisture-resistant board throughout, sealed on every cut edge.
Because it is going to be painted. Tulipwood — American poplar — has a fine, even texture that machines crisply and takes paint almost flat, while still being real timber with real strength through a door rail. Oak under paint is a waste of an oak tree: its open grain telegraphs through the finish and you end up filling it.
Where timber is meant to be seen, oak is exactly what gets used.
Yes. Farrow & Ball, Little Greene, Mylands, Dulux Heritage — or a colour matched from a fabric sample, a tile, or a tin you already have in the shed. Paint is mixed to whatever you want.
Two reasons. Factory-sprayed doors arrive perfect and then get chipped during fitting, and the repairs never quite match. And painting in place lets the cabinetry, scribes, cornice and walls be finished as one continuous surface, so there is no visible break where the kitchen stops and the room starts.
If you specifically want a sprayed finish — common on modern handleless designs — that can be arranged instead. It is a conversation, not a rule.
Solid oak and other hardwoods are made in-house. Stone, quartz, composite and stainless are supplied and templated by specialists Ollie works with regularly, then fitted into the cabinetry he has built — so the tolerances actually line up.
Next step
Book a free, no-obligation design visit. Ollie measures up, talks through what you want and follows up with a drawing and a fixed written quote — usually within a week.
