A LIfetime of Building Kitchens - that's Ken Rose of Roses Kitchens
Mon 5th March 2018
No other kitchen company designs, makes and pre-installs their kitchens to make sure there are no hiccups. And before you ask, no, they don’t do bedrooms or bathrooms!
Family business, Roses of Beverley, is a family business, headed up by Ken Rose and his son, Matthew with Dorian Brown, the designer and a team of local fitters, electricians, plumbers, plasterers and tilers who are contracted in but who have the same ethos - to give great service. Buy a Roses kitchen and you get the ultimate in team-working as well as a bespoke kitchen to meet your needs and desires.
Ken’s experience in building kitchens is extensive. At the age of 25, he became Production Director at Hygena, running manufacturing bases in Scunthorpe, Hull and Stockton-on-Tees. When Ken was 35, Hygena was bought out by MFI. One of Hygena’s owners invited Ken to go to America, to work with him there in Connecticut, building kitchens. Ken remembers the interviews to get his Green Card to be allowed to work in America - in those days, you had to prove there was no-one else in the US who could do your job! After a short time, Ken then moved to Ohio, where the company’s manufacturing plant was based. This was a dream job for Ken, for the plant had its own kiln and saw-mill. Here, Ken learnt about wood - how to grade it, how to select the best wood for veneers, how to choose prime timber to make solid wood kitchens and which to send to be used for railway sleepers. None of the wood which came into the saw-mill was ever wasted; even offcuts and bark were turned into mulch for parks and gardens.
Ken told Just Beverley: “The company owned tracts of forest growing red oak, white oak, hickory, walnut and maple. Someone called a ‘cruiser’ would go out finding suitable tracts of forest. The mature trees would be cut down into logs, kiln-dried and then cut into lengths. The best wood, veneer-grade wood, would go to Japan for keyboards and the like.”
After 5 years in America, Ken was home-sick - and ambitious to use the skills he’d learnt in his own back yard. The family were happy enough over there; Matthew was going to school in the States and daughter Elizabeth (Lizzy) was developing a fine American accent but Ken knew that it was time for his adventure to come to an end. That was when Roses of Beverley came into being!
Roses has been making tailor-made kitchens for 20 years. From choosing a kitchen to completion - that’s full-installed, appliances working, tiling and painting completed, lights in and flooring down - can take up to 3 months. That’s because, for Ken, everything has to be perfect. Roses could fit more kitchens, but the quality would not be there, because the different stages would have to be rushed and that would affect the Roses reputation.
Ken said: “When someone comes in to have a look at our different ranges, we call that Day - 10. Between Day - 10 and Day 0 when the order is placed is the time period when Dorian the Designer gets to work and clients choose what best suits their needs and budget. A refurbishment takes less time and is less expensive than a full kitchen, but even our less expensive ranges get the best Roses service complete with pre-installation. Pre-installation was the best thing we ever did - it ensures quality - and means I can oversee the project and time-frames.”
The Roses showroom proudly displays letters and cards from satisfied customers and Ken is gratified that so many of their customers come by word-of-mouth. Ken says there is one word for that - "Service!"
“We work around our customers", said Ken. "The summer months are particularly busy because that’s when people go away on holiday so that’s when we can fit a new kitchen in their home. They leave us the key and we get on with it! It means we don’t get a summer holiday but my job is my hobby! I love seeing big smiles on clients’ faces! We are completely customer-focussed, our innovations are all customer-focussed - like the working kitchen in the show-room. We also have a van into a laundry room with a washer/ dryer so clients have somewhere to wash and dry their clothes. There are very few laundrettes nowadays and this is all part of the service. We are taking things to another level!”
Roses of Beverley, The Kitchen Specialists are located in The Courtyard, Tokenspire Business Park, Beverley, HU17 0TB. Telephone: 01482 869111 www.roseskitchens.com
