Our New Normal: Crafting Your Dream Kitchen Post-Pandemic

As the world returns to something like normal following the global pandemic, here at Controlled Interiors we’ve been busily adapting the way we work. We’ve taken a host of measures to make sure you can enjoy the incredible service and get the beautiful bespoke kitchen you expect from us – all while feeling safe and completely Covid secure.

In this post, we’ll walk you through how to design your post-pandemic dream kitchen with us.

Covid-safe showrooms

With the easing of government restrictions, we’ve been delighted to welcome customers back into our showrooms. So pop into our Fareham or Winchester branches and say hello – we’d love to see you!

At the time of writing, some of the Covid-safe measures we have in place include:

· Full vaccinations – each of our staff has been double-jabbed

· Advice to wear a mask upon entry – our team will be wearing theirs as they greet you with a smile (even if you can’t quite see it!)

· Hand sanitiser stations

· Regular clean-downs of surfaces

· Awareness around social distancing. While not strictly enforcing a two-metre rule, our team will endeavour to keep a respectful distance from all customers, and will give a friendly wave rather than shaking your hand!

We aim to make everyone feel welcome, safe, and confident in our measures, so that you can put your focus where it really should be: on the renovations to inspire your post-pandemic dream dwelling.

Your dream kitchen design journey

Every kitchen we design is bespoke, and the way we operate is similarly adaptable. However you want to work with us, we aim to make crafting your dream kitchen post-pandemic as straightforward, enjoyable and inspiring as possible!

Initial contact

However you’d like to get in touch with us, we’ll be happy to help.

Whether you drop us an email, give us a call or visit one of our showrooms, we’ll ask questions, listen intently, and take the time to understand what you’re looking for. We’ll then offer up initial thoughts, ideas and possibilities based on our years of kitchen design experience!

At this stage, you may want to book a home visit. During one of these, our team will arrive at your home (masks on and hands sanitised!) to discuss your needs and preferences, take measurements and survey your kitchen space. That will give us the basis to come away and produce the most detailed design possible.

Which brings us neatly to…

The design phase

Whether you’re searching for inspiration or advice, you have a specific idea of what you’d like in your dream kitchen space, our team of designers can help you land on the perfect solution in one of two ways:

· In-person design sessions: Come into our showrooms to discuss any ideas you have or tell us about your space and ask for suggestions. Our team will take your plans, draw up a 3D computer-aided design (CAD) model of potential layouts, and invite you back into our showroom for a presentation where we’ll walk you through the layout decisions we’ve made and the finishes we’ve chosen. You’ll then be able to give feedback to help us finesse the next stage of the design. We’ll keep working with you and tweaking the design until it’s exactly where you want it to be!

· Remote design consultations: For anyone still playing it safe with social distancing (or if you simply don’t have the time to make it to one of our showrooms!), we are still offering our incredibly popular digital design sessions over Skype or Zoom. There we’ll offer the same CAD design walkthrough, just one you can enjoy from the comfort of your own home. These can continue until your design is at the very later stages – at which point we’ll ask you to come in to see the final product, before moving to the next stage of the process.

Best of all, every design consultation you have with us is entirely free of charge – with no obligation to buy. That means you can focus on letting your imagination run wild until you land on the perfect design.

Planning and logistics phase

Only once you’re happy with your design will we ask you for a deposit. This will secure your kitchen at the price we’ve quoted and allow us to move forward to booking in your installation day.

At this stage, we’ll hand you over to our operations team, who will send you a welcome letter and communicate with you to pin down the perfect day for your kitchen works.

Our lead times on these can vary. At the time of writing, we’re taking orders for between 8 weeks away, to all the way into summer 2022! The latter is proving especially popular with customers building new homes. So, if you want to get your installation date down early and have your plans all ready to go, working with us now on crafting your dream kitchen post-pandemic is a great way to go about it.

Installation day

The final part of our process sees us arrive at your home on the prearranged day to install your dream kitchen! As with the other phases, our team will be fully conscientious of Covid, wearing masks, regularly sanitising their hands, and being mindful of social distancing.

It’s also worth noting that we also work with tradespeople on a contract basis. So whether you’re having your home built and need us to liaise with your builders directly, or you’re a property developer looking for a firm to craft beautiful modern or shaker-style kitchens, we can work with you to realise both the design and do the detailed fitting work.

Get in touch today

We genuinely love what we do, and we take an awful lot of pride in giving customers a dream kitchen they can be proud of too.

For our designers, there’s no better feeling than knowing their creativity has borne fruit and their CAD design is going to be made into a real, physical space. And right across our team, the feeling when we get to see and hear your enthusiasm and excitement at the final product… there really is nothing more rewarding.

So, if our post-pandemic dream kitchen guide has inspired you, then please do get in touch – we’d love to hear from you!

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