Bespoke kitchen manufacturer Tom Howley has launched a new Remote Design Service, giving clients the opportunity to experience its full design process from the comfort of their own homes.
Launching in April, the service marks a key step in the brand’s shift towards a hybrid showroom model—blending traditional showroom visits with flexible, in-home consultations. Initially rolling out across the South West, including Devon, Cornwall, Dorset and Oxfordshire, the service is designed to reach clients beyond the immediate catchment of Tom Howley’s showrooms.
Designers will visit clients in their homes with a carefully curated selection of materials and samples (such as doors, tiles and worktops) to reflect a broad range of design options and inspirations, allowing the creative process to take place at the customers own home and thereby with offering the ability for the designer to take measurements and visual cues from the very kitchen space being transformed—without the need for an initial showroom visit.
Kevin Holmes, managing director at Tom Howley, said: “While showrooms remain an important part of the journey, today’s clients are looking for greater flexibility. Our Remote Design Service brings the Tom Howley experience directly into the home, enabling us to start designing in the space itself, with everything from materials to layouts considered in context.”
The move reflects growing demand for convenience and a more personalised approach. While clients can still visit a showroom at any stage, the new service allows the early phases of kitchen design to take place entirely at home.
The South West pilot will help refine the concept, with plans to expand the hybrid model across the UK—ensuring more clients can access Tom Howley’s design expertise, wherever they are.
Kbb veteran and Kitchens-Kitchens writer Jeff Russell added, "Whilst it may seem to many independents that Tom Howley are only now doing something they themselves have done for decades, in offering a home design service, Tom Howley are obviously widening their reach but without the cost of increasing their showroom count.
"In todays challenging kbb market, traditional retail has to have an enhanced appeal and although Tom Howley may not have too many competitors in the high end bespoke market, there are increasing amounts of homeowners that are looking to save a little money and shop around for a new kitchen that may still be high end, but without the high end price tag so with a shrinking consumer base, it would be wise for Tom Howley to broaden its reach, but without opening more showrooms, given the well deserved good name and reputation it has in the bespoke kitchen market.'
Although the full details of the Tom Howley Remote Design Service are yet to be publicised we would expect Tom Howley to mirror what kbb independents do in that they would take various samples of doors, worktops, tile and the like to showcase the premium materials on offer, but just as the kbb independents have been doing for years, the Tom Howley designer would measure the kitchen and then generate a 3D visual of the customers ideal kitchen and with the latest versions of design software such as ArtiCAD Version 24, a designer can better recreate more accurate reflections, refractions, and shadows, resulting in hyper realistic-looking images that better reflect the actual kitchen area of the customer, more so that if they came into a showroom.
