We don’t really have a ‘house’ style - but, should we?

Scroll through our projects and you might notice something: they don’t all look the same. Not one.

There are painted Shaker kitchens and clean contemporary cabinetry. Richly coloured rooms and quiet, neutral ones. Traditional dressers, dark timber drinks cabinets, oak libraries, sleek media furniture and boot rooms designed to cope with the realities of family life.

And that’s quite deliberate.

At Collins Bespoke, we don’t really have an overt ‘house’ style.

Your home, not ours

When someone asks us to design a room, we don’t begin with a collection, a range of doors or a particular Collins Bespoke look. We begin with the house and the people who live there.

Because a Georgian home in the Kent countryside shouldn't necessarily have the same answer as a contemporary extension in Canterbury. A busy family kitchen has different demands from a room designed for two. And, someone who loves colour, pattern and collected objects shouldn't end up with the same interior as someone happiest surrounded by pale oak and beautifully simple lines. And - sometimes, we have to mix all those things (the Collins household meets with completely polarised styles, I assure you!)

However. The architecture matters. How the room is used: it matters. And, most importantly, the people who are going to live with it - they matter.

Our job isn't to make your home look like ours.

It's to make it feel more like yours.

Good design doesn't always announce itself

There is something reassuring about a recognisable style. You can look at a room and immediately know who designed it.

We've never really worked that way.

We'd rather the cabinetry looked as though it belongs to the house.

Sometimes that means respecting original architecture and making something that feels as though it could always have been there. Sometimes it means introducing something unapologetically contemporary. Quite often it's somewhere between the two.

The same applies to materials. We work with painted cabinetry, natural timbers, veneers, stone, metals and an almost endless choice of finishes. We're not trying to steer every client towards the same palette or repeat what worked in the last house.

That's one of the pleasures of making everything individually: we can start again.

But. There is a Collins signature. You just might not see it immediately.

Not having a house style doesn't mean our work has nothing in common.

Quite the opposite.

Look a little closer and you'll find the things that matter to us in every project: proportion, thoughtful detailing, cabinetry that fits properly, materials chosen for a reason and furniture made to withstand being lived with.

Open a drawer and you'll find the same care inside it. The same quality which brings our clients back again, and again.

Look at how cabinetry meets an awkward wall, how a run has been proportioned around a window or how storage has been worked into a space where there seemingly wasn't room for any, and you'll probably find more of Collins Bespoke than you will in a particular paint colour or door style. We make it work.

Perhaps that's our house style after all.

From kitchens to whole homes

That freedom has become even more important as the work we do has expanded.

A project might begin with a kitchen and continue into the utility room, boot room, home office or dressing room. We might be asked to make a library, a bar, a media unit or cabinetry for a bathroom.

Sometimes we're working with our own designs. Sometimes we're collaborating with an architect or interior designer who already has a very clear vision.

Either way, the question is never how do we make this look like Collins Bespoke?

It's how do we make this work beautifully here?

And because everything is made in our own Kent workshop, we're not restricted by a catalogue of standard sizes or predetermined combinations. If a particular room needs something unusual, we can work out how to make it.

That tends to be where things get interesting.

Made for this house

Trends will change. Colours will come and go. The way we use our homes will continue to evolve.

We'd rather not leave behind rooms that can be dated instantly to the year they were made.

Instead, we hope that when you look through our portfolio, you see lots of very different homes — and lots of very different people reflected in them.

You might not be able to point to a particular moulding, colour or cabinet door and say, that's Collins Bespoke (though a few local estate agents can! In a very, very good way.)

And, we're quite happy with that.

Because perhaps the best bespoke interior shouldn't tell you who made it the moment you walk into the room.

It should tell you something about the people who live there.