Home / Independent or national
An independent maker, or a national company?
Sharps, Hammonds and the other national fitted-furniture firms do a real job and suit plenty of people. Here is the honest version of how they differ from someone like us, including the part where they are ahead.
Most people choosing fitted wardrobes end up comparing a national company with a local maker, and almost nothing written about it is written by someone willing to say where they lose. So: the differences are structural, they are mostly predictable, and which one suits you depends on what you are actually buying.
Things we genuinely do not offer
- A written guarantee. They advertise long ones. We do not offer one at all, and that is a real difference, not a technicality.
- A showroom. You can stand in front of a finished wardrobe, open the drawers and look at the finishes under the lights. We have photographs.
- Finance. Spreading the cost over months is something they arrange and we do not.
- Scale. If something goes wrong there is a company behind it. With an independent there is a person, which is better in most ways and worse in one.
If any of those four matter more to you than the rest of this page, that is a perfectly sensible reason to go with a national firm.
What you get instead
- The person quoting is the person building. Nothing is lost between the designer who measured and the fitter who turns up, because they are the same man.
- Nobody is selling you anything. There is no salesperson whose job is to close in your front room. The quote comes by email afterwards so you can read it twice, and nothing is on a deadline.
- No overhead in the price. A showroom, a sales team and national advertising all cost money, and it comes from somewhere.
- You can change your mind mid-job. Moving a shelf or adding a drawer is a conversation on site, not a variation order.
The bit worth being straight about
There is no written guarantee on our work, and it is the one place a national company has a clear advantage on paper.
The honest reason is that a printed warranty from a one-man business is only ever worth as much as the business behind it, and dressing one up would be marketing rather than a promise anyone could hold us to. What is offered instead is the thing a guarantee is a proxy for: the work was done by the person who will answer the phone afterwards, who works in the same corner of London he lives in, with 7 reviews from the people it was done for.
Separately, and this applies whoever you use: when a job is agreed in your home, or agreed entirely by phone, WhatsApp or email without you meeting anyone, the law gives you 14 days to cancel. You will get that in writing with the quote, along with a form to use. That is a legal right, not a favour.
Which suits which job
A national company suits you if you want a showroom to stand in, a long written warranty, finance, and a process with a company name behind every stage of it. For a large job, by someone who would rather deal with an organisation than a person, that is a reasonable set of priorities.
An independent suits you if you would rather the person pricing the job be the person building it, you want a quote you can read in your own time without anyone sitting opposite you, and you care more about how the thing is made than about the paperwork around it.
Neither of those is a trick answer. They are different products that happen to end up in the same bedroom.
Questions
Do you offer a guarantee like the big companies?
No, and it is better to say so plainly than to bury it. There is no written guarantee on the work.
What there is instead is the reviews, a phone number that gets answered by the person who did the work, and the fact that he works in the same few postcodes he lives in. If that is not enough reassurance for the size of job you have in mind, a national company with a printed warranty may genuinely suit you better.
Is an independent always cheaper?
Not automatically, and anyone who promises that is guessing. What is true is that the cost of a showroom, a sales team and a national advertising budget has to come from somewhere, and an independent does not carry it.
Can I see examples before committing?
Yes, in the gallery — 30 photographs of real jobs, including interiors with the doors open, which is where you find out whether something was built properly. There is no showroom to visit.
Who actually turns up on the day?
Max. The person who quotes the job is the person who builds it. On bigger jobs he brings a small team who work to the same standard.
Still deciding?
Send the measurements and a photo of the room. You will get an honest answer about what would work, including if that is not us.