April 14, 2026

Handmade does not mean no machines. Every serious cabinet workshop in the world uses a panel saw, a CNC router and a spray booth, ours included. What handmade should mean is that a person makes the decisions, does the fitting and finishing by hand, and puts their name to the result. The word is used very loosely, so it is worth knowing what to ask.

What is done by machine, and should be

Cutting sheet material to size, drilling hinge positions, and routing grooves are all done more accurately by machine than by hand. A CNC router holds a tolerance a person cannot, and in cabinetry accuracy is what makes a door sit flush.

Anyone claiming their kitchens are cut entirely by hand is either misleading you or producing something less accurate than they could. Neither is a good sign.

What is done by hand, and matters

• Assembly. Carcasses are put together, squared and checked by a person, not a machine.
• Drawer boxes. Ours are solid timber and dovetailed. That is a hand operation, and it is the single clearest tell of a workshop rather than a factory.
• Finishing. Sanding between coats, hand-polishing a lacquer, buffing an oiled timber. This is where most of the labour in a bespoke kitchen actually sits.
• Fitting. Scribing a unit to a wall that is not straight. No machine does this.

What the word usually hides

Plenty of kitchens sold as handmade are standard carcasses from a large European factory with a hand-painted door added. The door is genuinely hand-finished. The kitchen is not handmade in any meaningful sense.

That is not necessarily a bad kitchen, and the price should reflect it. The problem is that it is often priced as though a workshop built it.

Three questions that settle it

• Who assembles the carcasses, and where? A name and a place, or an evasion.
• Are the drawer boxes solid timber and jointed, or stapled? This costs real money and nobody does it by accident.
• Can I visit? The most revealing question of the three.

Where we sit

Our panels are cut on a CNC because accuracy matters. Everything after that is people. Fourteen cabinetmakers in Porto, assembly and finishing by hand, dovetailed drawer boxes, and a signature inside the carcass from whoever built it.

We would rather describe it accurately than lean on a word that has been worn smooth by overuse.