The Awards Explained	Hints	Entries	Judging
Roll of Honour	Finalists	Winners	Awards Gallery

There's one simple theme for the 2008 awards - easier to enter...but harder to win. So what's the judging process, and what are the judge's looking for?

Judging for any awards is often a long and fiddly process. Bringing the panel together in one place on the same day, ploughing through entries, sorting through pictures, debating the finalists...it's all pretty exhausting.

However, it's also most enjoyable part of the awards for us organisers. It's behind the closed doors of the judging room that the awards really start coming to life and we can see those entries come under the full scrutiny or totally impartial experts.

For 2008, however, we're stepping the judging up to a totally different level...

We're more than aware that putting detailed entries together is time consuming and laborious and this is probably what puts a lot of people off entering altogether.

Well, we're changing that.

You'll see in our section of entering that initial entries have been vastly simplified to an easy template of digital photographs and a maximum of 1,000 words across answers to just three questions.

You can also send us your entry online and view some sample entries  to help you on your way.


So that makes it easier to enter, but how are we making it easier to win?

Rather than picking winners based entirely on those submitted entries, as in the past, we're now only picking finalists that way. Once those finalists are chosen, stage two of the judging begins. In the four business categories - Master Retailer Award for Kitchens, Master Retailer Award for Bathrooms, Showroom Award for Kitchens and Showroom Award for Bathrooms - judges will visit each store for themselves to see the business in action, ask the owners questions and assess the true appeal of the showroom layout.

In the design categories, the judges will pick the four finalists from the submitted entries in an initial session. Those finalists will then come to our head office in North London where they will have to present and pitch their full designs to the judging panel who are then able to ask any questions and get a comprehensive view of the project.