Lingey Close, Dalston · since 1972
The reason to have it made
A sandstone terrace in Carlisle, a farmhouse out towards Wigton, a barn conversion in the Eden Valley. None of them has a square room in it, and a standard carcass comes in a standard size. What you get is filler panels, a gap behind the worktop, and a run of units that stops short of the wall.
We measure the room you actually have, photograph it, draw it, and cut the furniture to that drawing. A wall out by forty millimetres stops being a problem and becomes a dimension.
That is the whole difference, and it is what the price is for.
From the board to your kitchen
Most kitchen showrooms do the first one and the last one. The middle five happen in a building somebody else owns.
01
Somebody measures your room, then sits down and draws it. Elevations, dimensions, every cabinet worked out against the walls you actually have rather than the walls the catalogue assumes. You see the plan and the 3D images before you are asked for anything.
02
Timber comes in here in the board. Carcasses and frames are machined in our own workshop at Dalston, on a mixture of the original machinery that has been here for decades and the modern machines beside it, to the measurements on the drawing rather than to a standard width.
03
A dovetail is the quiet tell. It takes longer, it costs more, and it is the joint that is still tight after twenty years of a family pulling the drawer open with one hand. You do not get one in a flat pack, because you cannot make one in a flat pack.
04
Painted work is sprayed and primed here, in our own paint shop, by our own finisher. It is then hand-painted in durable water-based eggshell in whatever colour you chose. Natural timber is pre-finished in a two-pack lacquer that leaves a satin lustre, tough and maintenance free.
05
Carlisle, the Eden Valley, the Lakes, and over the border into Dumfriesshire. There is a kitchen at Dornock from 2023 and a dressing room in the same house from 2025, which is the kind of thing that only happens if the first job went right.
06
Installation is part of the job and not a subcontract. Our own fitting team put it in, which means the people holding the door are the people who know how it was built, and there is nobody to point at if something needs adjusting.
07
Same site since 1972, second generation, and we keep the drawings. That is the part the price is really buying: somebody to ring in ten years who can make you one replacement door that matches the other nineteen.
Rooms we have made
The place and the month on every one of these came out of the photographer's own files, not out of anybody's memory. Photographs by Jonathan Becker.
Kitchen · Burgh by Sands
Fitted September 2025
What we make
It is all the same building, the same timber and the same men. A boot room is made the way the kitchen is made, because the boot room is the room that takes the weather.
Come and look
Most people arrive with a room they do not like and no idea what to do about it. That is the normal starting point, and it is what the first visit is for.
We show you round the displays, with the sinks, taps, worktops and appliances that go with them. Then we come to your house, measure it and photograph it, and you come back to see the plan, the 3D images and an exact price.
No charge for any of that, and nothing to sign at the end of it.
Closed on bank holiday weekends. Parking on site.
Lingey Close, Dalston
Because it is a different product. A national showroom sells a carcass made in a factory to a standard size, in a standard finish, and books a fitter to put it in. We buy the timber, cut the carcasses ourselves, prime and hand-paint them in our own paint shop, and fit them with our own men. Four jobs, one firm, one drawing.
If a standard kitchen fits your room and you like it, buy the standard kitchen. Our work is for rooms where it does not fit, or for people who want the thing to still be right in twenty years.
That is the reason to have it made. We measure your room as it is, photograph it, and draw the furniture to those measurements. A wall that is out by forty millimetres over three metres is a dimension on the drawing rather than a problem on fitting day.
The design and the making happen before anything is taken out, so the disruption is the fitting rather than the whole project. We will give you the dates at the quotation stage, and our own fitters work to them because they are our fitters.
You get a plan, images and a price before you commit. In Thwaite Holme's own words: we prepare a plan, photographic images and an exact price. If you change your mind about something in the middle, that changes the price, and we will tell you by how much before we do it.
This number. We have been at Lingey Close since 1972 and the second generation of the family runs it now. We keep the drawings, so we can make you one replacement door in twenty years that matches the other nineteen.
No, and most people do not. Come and look at the displays, tell us what is wrong with the room you have, and we will take it from there. There is no charge for the consultation and no obligation at the end of it.
Talk to the workshop
