Made at Dalston since 1972

Bespoke kitchens

Made in our own workshop at Dalston, and fitted by our own men. A kitchen is the biggest piece of furniture most people ever buy. It goes in the room the family actually lives in. It has to take twenty years of that. So it is a making job, not a shopping job.

Book a showroom visit 01228 710085

Barn conversion kitchen near Bassenthwaite under an exposed king-post truss, with a navy island and pale in-frame cabinets — Kitchen, Burgh by Sands. Fitted September 2025.

The argument

What made to measure buys you

A standard kitchen is built from boxes in fixed widths. Your room is not a multiple of those widths. The difference gets made up with filler panels. Every filler panel is worktop you paid for and cannot use.

Ours are cut to the room. If the run is 3,240mm, the furniture is 3,240mm. If the wall leans, we cut the scribe to the lean. If a chimney breast is in the way, we draw the larder round it.

It also means you are not stuck with a catalogue. A larder the full height of the room. A drawer deep enough for the pans you own. An island with the breakfast table built into the end. Those are drawings, not product codes.

Most of our work is hand-painted in-frame. We also make solid timber. Farmhouses, barn conversions and sandstone terraces are the houses we know best, because they are the houses round here.

BESPOKE KITCHENS · SPECIFICATIONThwaite Holme · Lingey Close · Dalston

Carcass: Birch ply, cut and machined at Dalston, lipped
Doors: In-frame, made to the drawing for your room
Painted: Pre-primed in-house, hand-painted on site in water-based eggshell
Timber: Two-pack lacquer, satin, tough and maintenance free
Worktops: Quoted with the kitchen, chosen from the showroom displays
Appliances: Sinks, taps and appliances on display at Dalston

Made at: Dalston
Fitted by: Our own men
Trading since: 1972
Drawings kept: Always

From our own jobs

Rooms we have already made.

Cream in-frame kitchen at Red Hall with a plate rack, a range cooker and a pine table under the window

Open-plan hand-painted kitchen at Burgh by Sands with a navy island, integrated wine store and a glazed dresser run over herringbone parquet

Kitchen at the Old Vicarage, Mealsgate, with a painted extractor canopy, sash windows and a scrubbed pine table

Charcoal painted kitchen with a pale island, three glass globe pendants and a black range cooker

We have made kitchens in Carlisle and across Cumbria since 1972. We buy the timber. We cut the carcasses at Dalston. We prime them in our own paint shop. Our own men paint them by hand in your house, then fit them. One firm. One drawing. One number to ring afterwards.

Named and dated

Real houses, with the month on them.

01Burgh by SandsA navy island and a glazed dresser run, Burgh by SandsSeptember 2025 02BassenthwaiteUnder the trusses of a barn, BassenthwaiteAugust 2025 03Red HallA plate rack, a range and a pine table, Red HallAugust 2024 04ManserghArched windows and a white island, Carrfoot LodgeFebruary 2024 05Dornock, DumfriesshireA curved island with the table built into it, DornockSeptember 2023 06MealsgateA painted canopy under sash windows, the Old VicarageFebruary 2023

Where we work

Cumbria, and over the border.

We fit our own furniture across north Cumbria and into Dumfriesshire. Two of the jobs on this site are in Scotland, in the same house, two years apart.

Bespoke kitchens: what people ask

What is an in-frame kitchen, and why does it cost more?

In-frame means each door sits inside a frame fixed to the carcass. That is how a piece of furniture is made. The cheaper way is to hang the door on the front of a box.

It takes more timber and more machining. It takes far more accuracy, because the gap round every door has to be even the whole way round, and you can see it.

It is also why a good in-frame kitchen still looks right in twenty years. There is a frame holding it all square.

Can you match a colour I have already chosen?

Yes. We prime the work here and hand-paint it on site in water-based eggshell. The colour is whatever you want. That is the practical gain from having our own paint shop instead of ordering doors in somebody else's fixed range.

Do you do the worktops and appliances as well?

Yes. We have sinks, taps, appliances and worktops on display in the showroom at Dalston. They are quoted with the furniture. You get one price for the room instead of building it up from three suppliers.

How long will I be without a kitchen?

Ask us on the day and we will tell you straight. The fit is done by our own team, not a subcontractor we are waiting on. That is the part that usually decides how long a kitchen job drags.

Is a fitted kitchen from you different to a fitted kitchen from a showroom?

Yes, and the difference is where it was made. Most fitted kitchens in Carlisle are ordered in from a factory and assembled in your house. Ours are cut, primed and painted at Dalston, then fitted by the same firm. Same words, different product.

What if I only want doors, not a whole kitchen?

Ring and ask. We are set up for whole rooms and that is where we do our best work. But we make everything here, so a conversation costs nothing.

The rest of the house

We make all of it.

01Fitted bedrooms and wardrobesWardrobes cut to the wall you have, not the wall a catalogue assumed.See the work 02Boot rooms and utility roomsThe room that takes the weather, the dog and the washing.See the work 03Dressing roomsA spare bedroom turned into the room you get ready in.See the work 04Home offices and studiesDesk, shelves and cupboards built into the room as one piece of furniture.See the work 05Media walls and TV unitsThe television, the boxes and the cables, put away inside the joinery.See the work 06Kitchen islands and lardersThe two pieces people remember, and the two worth making properly.See the work 07Free-standing furnitureWhere Bob Postlethwaite started in 1972, and we still make it.See the work

Talk to the workshop

Come and see one before you buy one.

01228 710085

Book a showroom visitor come in. No appointment needed to look round.

Lingey Close, Dalston, Carlisle, Cumbria, CA5 7LB. Parking on site.

Monday to Thursday: 8am – 5pm
Friday: 8am – 3.30pm
Saturday: 8am – 12pm
Sunday: Closed