Established thirty years ago, Welshpool-based Kenton Jones specialises in the design and manufacture of handcrafted kitchens, bathrooms and bedrooms.

Combining Traditional Craftsmanship with

State of the Art Computer Aided Design

The company holds no stock:  every kitchen is unique and is made to order for each customer. 

At the heart of this family-run craftsman’s business, sits ArtiCAD, which replaced an existing CAD system some five years ago. 

Roger Parsons is Kenton Jones’ sales manager: 

“In my view, a badly produced design from a CAD system is worse than not having one at all – it can do a great deal of harm.  With ArtiCAD we can create designs that show every minute, individual detail of our clients’ kitchens, including specific wood grains, mitred corners, the view through their windows and the way that light falls on the room at different times of the day.  And, each item of the kitchen, including labour, is automatically costed using the ArtiCAD program.”

Kenton Jones installed their first CAD system over ten years ago, with the aim of speeding up the design process. However as time went on, the need for a more personalised software package became evident, with clients needing to be shown the subtle  effects that grain and texture choices available from Kenton Jones  would have in their kitchen environment.

The Kenton Jones management team began looking at all the suppliers of CAD systems for kitchen design, and chose ArtiCAD Limited.  “We were specifically looking for a company that would take an interest in our particular business and be responsive to our needs.  We found that in ArtiCAD.”

Roger Parsons:  “It was essential that our CAD system could accurately depict the kitchens that we build for our customers.  We needed to have graphics showing all the various wood grains.  For example, oak can be light, antique, rustic or pippy.  There is a huge amount of variety, and this needed to be reflected in the scope of our ArtiCAD system.”

The resultant ArtiCAD solution for Kenton Jones also includes a detailed pricing system.  Every single item in a kitchen – from an individual cornice or decoration on a plinth – is costed together with the labour associated with its manufacture. 

Unique kitchens, personalised designs

Kenton Jones’ sales staff spend a lot of time producing the designs for their customers.  Individual mouldings around windows, cornices and lighting are all given equal attention, together with the specific wood grains and door styles for the kitchen.   Photographs of the views through the client’s windows are incorporated into the design to ensure that it is as realistic and detailed as possible. 

Roger Parsons:  “Our aim is to recreate the atmosphere of the kitchen.  There is absolutely no point in customers coming to look at a design, which may be technically correct, if the room in which it is sited doesn’t look like theirs.  In order to achieve this level of realism, we have to make sure that doors, windows and lighting are all absolutely correct down to the finest detail.  Many CAD programs simply don’t have this level of flexibility and, for example, only offer standard windows.  Using ArtiCAD our customers are frequently surprised by just how good the design looks.

“When we moved to the ArtiCAD system five years ago, we were looking for a company that could offer a personal service and we have certainly found that.”  Upgrades to the system and any additional training are provided on site at Welshpool, and changes are carried out in batches based on lists of requirements from Kenton Jones. 

Roger Parsons concluded:  “We are very busy and ArtiCAD never lets us down.  We never experience any problems with it.  It just runs like clockwork.”