Normally, signs of positivity would be illustrated with the metaphor of the sun finally coming out from behind dark clouds. Not so at Church Farm Kitchens where their confidence, and order book, is swelling as welcome rain pours on the parched working farm.

When we last caught up with Church Farm Kitchens, Charlie and Alex Braidwood were finally seeing some light at the end of what had been a worryingly long tunnel. After months of uncertainty, enquiries had started turning into orders and the workshop diary was filling up. 

Having once wondered where the next kitchen was coming from, Charlie could suddenly see several months of work stretching ahead. 

Fast-forward a few months and the mood at Church Farm has moved again, this time from relief to open confidence. “It’s hectic,” Charlie laughs. “I read something the other day that said, ‘How wonderful to be overwhelmed with the work that you once prayed so hard for’. I thought that was lovely. So now, even when we’re really busy, I try to remember that.”

It is, perhaps, the best possible problem for Church Farm Kitchens to have. But the sudden transition from worrying about keeping the workshop busy to making and fitting several kitchens back-to-back has brought its own challenges.

Add in the summer holidays and the realities of running a family business and it has been quite a baptism of fire.

“We didn’t end up taking a holiday,” Charlie says. “We were busy, trying to keep on top of everything and trying to work the kids’ summer out as well. Some days our son Teddy had to go to work with Alex and some days he was coming in the van with me.

“But I think this is when it really shows how good a team you have. The guys have worked so hard in that workshop and turned around some really lovely kitchens. They see that we’re trying our best and doing everything we can.”

Learning

That team has certainly been tested. Church Farm’s normal workflow is relatively straightforward: The workshop team of Jacek Rykaczewski and Dariusz Zurek make a kitchen and, while Jacek goes off to do the fitting, Dariusz begins production on the next project.

This summer, however, client timings, building work and product delays meant several projects collided.

“They were like buses so three of them all came at once,” Charlie says. “We were making and fitting at the same time and that made it much more hectic.”

But there has been an unexpected benefit. Charlie has become far more involved in both the workshop and installation side of the business. “I’ve been helping Jacek with deliveries and he’s even had me drilling hinges and drawer runners and doing handles,” she says. “I’ve been in the workshop sanding as well.

“I really enjoy it. As soon as they make the carcasses I can start seeing it all coming together and then you see the doors being painted. It’s helping me massively.”

It has, she says, also made her a better designer. The beauty of Church Farm’s proposition has always been that the furniture is genuinely made a few metres from the showroom. That means the answer to an awkward design problem doesn’t necessarily have to be found in a catalogue.

On one recent listed-property project, for example, a structural beam wasn’t quite where everyone expected it to be. The solution included creating specially shaped drawer boxes to work around it.

“We can do that,” Charlie says. “That’s the great thing. Every time something like that happens, we learn from it.

“You can be freer with the design because you know the guys can make things differently. You think, ‘They’ll be able to do that’, or, ‘Maybe we could make it like this instead’. That flexibility is really important.”

Taking control

Those recent installations have also reinforced the Braidwoods’ original ambition for Church Farm Kitchens to offer more than simply furniture.

On one project, the client appointed separate builders, plumbers and electricians. Trying to coordinate everyone while dealing with services that weren’t always where they needed to be quickly demonstrated the value of taking control of the whole project.

“It sounds greedy to say we want to do it all,” says Alex, “but it just works better.”

Charlie recalls one customer suggesting, just days before installation, that their builders could fit the furniture more cheaply. “I explained that our guys know exactly how it has been measured, how it has been made and how it needs to go in,” she says. “After a couple of days they were saying how beautiful it was and what a lovely job Jacek had done.

“I think they expected it to be carcasses thrown up against a wall. Then they saw the level of work involved. At the time I was furious, but actually it was nice to change somebody’s perception like that.”

The experience is all part of a steep learning curve for a business that only opened in July 2024 and endured a particularly tough start in a difficult kitchen market. Church Farm grew out of Charlie’s family construction and joinery company, giving it skills and capabilities well beyond kitchens from day one. 

Now those different elements are beginning to come together. Church Farm expects to complete five kitchens this year, plus a utility – up from three kitchens last year – and enquiries continue to build. Crucially, recommendations are starting to arrive too.

“We had somebody come in because we’d been recommended,” Charlie says. “It was lovely because it was one of the first times that had happened.”

And the joinery and construction side is increasingly becoming a strength rather than something sitting alongside the kitchen business.

One prospective customer, based in Wales, initially approached them about a kitchen. By the time Charlie and Alex visited, the potential project encompassed a kitchen, boot room, bathroom, new floors, underfloor heating, a glazed entrance, a new front door and alterations to the bedroom.

Another customer has approached them about a whole-house renovation including sash windows, external doors and a kitchen. “That’s what we wanted,” Charlie says. “The full project.”

It also plays perfectly into an increasingly confident understanding of what Church Farm Kitchens actually is.

“We know we’re not going to do 100 kitchens a year,” says Alex. “And we know who we are now,” Charlie adds. “I just say to people, ‘We do bespoke country kitchens’. If somebody wants something ultra-modern and futuristic, that’s not really my thing.

“We can give things a lighter or more modern edge, but we’re not trying to supply every market. The confidence in what we’re doing is building as more people buy into it.”

That confidence is even filtering down into the smallest details. Rather than buying accessories, the workshop is increasingly making its own cutlery trays, knife blocks and spice racks.

For one customer, it created bespoke spice racks fitted to the backs of doors. Others have received small handmade gifts when their projects were completed.

They are tiny touches, but they reinforce the idea that Church Farm isn’t selling a kitchen that could have come from anywhere. It is a small illustration of a much bigger shift.

Church Farm still regularly revisits its business plan – at one stage Charlie and Alex were doing so every three months because circumstances were changing so rapidly. Now, for the first time, they feel able to look a little further ahead.

“I think it’s about consistency now,” Charlie says. “We’ll smooth the processes out as we do more and it’s nice having projects ahead of you.

“We turned a corner this year when things weren’t brilliant because we stuck to our guns. Now it’s about keeping that confidence in who we are and what we want to be.

“I think it’s about being organised for opportunities, so if something comes up or we need to change something, we’re ready for it and we’re not making decisions because we feel rushed or behind.

“I’m actually, dare I say it, a bit excited.”