The Forge
Cross Keys
Withington
Herefordshire
HR1 3NU

01432 820612

The House of Wood website

The House of Wood showroom and workshop are situated on a country road, 4 miles from Hereford. At first glance it looks as if they specialise in traditional country furniture and ornamental accessories ... but if you go inside and have a good look around you'll find some beautiful kitchens - available in any style you like.

The owner, Jed Smith, has been running the business for the last eighteen years, following on from his previous career as an antique dealer. He started off just retailing traditional looking furniture, then started to make pieces to order ... and then customers started asking for kitchens.

The House of Wood specialises in several different sorts of furniture. They retail tables and chairs - and other free standing furniture - with solid oak pieces from the French manufacturer Antix being especially popular.

They also supply and fit Neptune Classics kitchen furniture. I've written about Neptune Classics before. They make very smart looking, modular, inset framed units with birch ply carcasses and solid timber fronts - in traditional styles. Neptune also publish a price list and have a completely transparent pricing structure.

The House of Wood will also make you a bespoke hand made kitchen in any style at all. There's a workshop situated behind the showroom (it looks a bit messy in my photo, but then workshops often do ... and I didn't warn them I was going to turn up with my camera!). There's also plenty of parking at the side of the premises as you can see.

There are a couple of Neptune Classics displays inside the showroom. The pictures on the right show the very traditionally styled Chichester kitchen in painted finish (together with the standard colour choices for that style).

There's one huge advantage of buying a Neptune kitchen from a cabinetmaker. You not only get the standardised, high quality units and the transparent pricing (notice all the price tags on the displays) ... but you can also get non-standard pieces and matching accessories made specifically for you ... the best of both worlds!

The pale oak Henley kitchen (from the Neptune range) ... shown below with a bespoke dark timber worktop - and in the picture at the top of the page ... is much plainer in style and could be made to look more modern than the Chichester style, depending on what accessories and handles were used with it. There's also a plain, shaker style, painted kitchen called Suffolk.

The House of Wood also do completely bespoke oak kitchens. What's the difference? Well, the carcasses are not birch ply (like the Neptune ones) but are made from solid scandinavian redwood. They are also not modular. If you, for instance, want a straight run of two cupboards with a set of drawers in the middle, it can all be made as one unit - at any size you like (although you do have to make sure you can get the larger units into the house!).

The pictures below - of a real kitchen, made by The House of Wood  - are from Jeds's photo collection. Ask to look through it, if you want some ideas. The doors are made in solid character oak.

There's also a display of this style of oak kitchen in the showroom. The doors have square, raised centre panels (matched by the profile of the drawer fronts) - so it's quite traditional - and yet there are no fancy profiles or beading and it's quite geometric in look ... which seems quite fresh and modern to me.

If you're looking for something a bit different to the ubiquitous shaker style - this could be it.

The settings in the photos are both fairly traditional - and that might be exactly what you want - but imagine this style of kitchen in a different setting without the traditional brick, tile and stonework ... perhaps with some chrome handles. It could look very contemporary. I'd  love to see that!

Here are the details for kitchens from The House of Wood:

Showroom is at the address given above 

Various brands of free standing furniture
Neptune Classics kitchens
+ bespoke kitchens, made in the workshop behind the showroom

Mainly Neff and Bosch - can get other makes - also quite happy for customers to source their own appliances

Min. Price: £700 ... Max. Price: £1,200 (birch ply or solid timber carcasses)

 Around £6,500 (furniture/units only)

 Around £12,000 (furniture/units only) ... total kitchen price usually around £20,000

33% with order - for bespoke kitchens
for other furniture/kitchens around £1,000 deposit with order - 50% of balance on delivery of furniture to House of Wood - remainder on delivery to customer
- no deposit protection scheme - does accept credit card payments

Jed uses a trusted, sub-contracted fitter - or the workshop staff will fit House of Wood's own bespoke furniture - average fit price around £650 for the cabinets only
 

Within 1 -2 hours travelling time from the showroom - for fitting - would consider supply-only further afield, but you'd need an experienced kitchen fitter

Yes ... quite possibly ... if Jed doesn't have to do the design work himself. Take your plan in and discuss it with him.

For more information - have a look at the House of Wood website. You can e-mail Jed at jedhouseofwood@yahoo.com  - or give him a ring on the number above.