Hout Design Ltd

We really enjoyed working through the design process with the Hout team. Sjouke's ability to listen, put forward ideas and come up with a considered, practical and well designed kitchen lead us to a result that will be a pleasure to live with. Our new kitchen is beautiful, unique and incredibly well crafted using stunning, locally sourced elm.

Sjouke, Henry and Tracy are an amazing team! From the moment we started designing our kitchen with them, we felt in safe hands: they listened to us, guided us with their expertise, helped source products and appliances but also let us have our say and input. The process from beginning to end was creative, supportive and professional and communication was excellent. The finished result is everything and more than we wanted from our kitchen. The craftsmanship, attention to detail and simple beauty give us joy every time we use the space.

We moved to South lakes, our new home required wardrobes and shelving. HOUT Design was recommended to us. They had great ideas for what we wanted. We now have 3 well designed and built wardrobes and 2 built-in units in our lounge that are more than just shelves.. Thanks to HOUT Design. We can thoroughly recommend this company J & D

Sjouke and his small but perfectly formed team have been a joy to work with from beginning to end . He listened to our ideas and wants, and created at beautiful elm kitchen . It is the hub of our new build home , and we love it. We have now asked him to create some wall units and a table for the living dining kitchen space , to create a flowing design that we will be forever proud of . This is my first ever review, as I usually avoid them , but workmanship like this needs shouting about .

We picked Hout Design partly because they were local, as we got further into the design process we realised we would have picked them wherever they were based. Sjouke listens to clients then uses his experience with wood to interpret what we wanted through his lense. We had 3 sets of wardrobes built which are really unique, functional, and make us smile when see and use them.

Hout were commissioned to carryout the design, fabrication and installation of our new kitchen and utility area, including the provision of built in appliances. The work was carried out in accordance with the agreed timings and is of a very high quality. The finishes look particularly good and we are glad that we proceeded with a bespoke design. The design process itself ran smoothly and there was a good working relationship between Hout and our architects, BCA. This helped to facilitate the inclusion of Hout's work with the plumbing and electrical design, procurement and installation. We would use them again for future work.

For several years we had been wanting a long storage unit in our sitting room, to take sheet music which was being stored in plastic boxes. These may have been convenient for taking out to use on the music courses we teach on, but looked unsightly ranged along the floor. This storage unit had to be bespoke, because nothing bought ready-made was suitable, and I had already considered and rejected several ideas - even including adapting IKEA units by adding a solid wood top - but nothing was satisfactory or would look right. Ideally I wanted to commission someone local, so when I found that Hout Design were just down the road - and I saw the beauty and quality of the work on their website, it was obvious that they would be ideal. Souke is committed to using sustainably-sourced solid wood throughout - grown as locally as possible, and this was particularly in tune with what we wanted, as well as his clean modern designs, which still blend perfectly into a more traditional period house. Our room is north-facing and dark, with some old oak furniture, but we felt that having this one prominent piece in light oil-finished Ash would lighten the whole room. Souke visited and spent ample time discussing our needs and tastes before producing a design to provide maximum storage and to fit the awkward space - including having to fit the unit over a step down into the room and also curve back the top surface behind the door. The finished piece is beautiful, made with superb craftsmanship which I’m told was mostly by Sjouke’s assistant Henry. The top is just one piece of Northumbrian Ash, beautifully figured and finished, and the very attractive figuring on the doors adds very strikingly to the overall effect. The unit is fitted perfectly against our not very straight wall - Sjouke and Henry came and spent a long time on the accurate final fitting, and Souke even gave special attention to the design of the door handles, also hand-made from Ash.

We'd looked at our tiny galley style kitchen with our interesting split level lounge and realised that we needed something special and bespoke. Our kitchen is a continuation of the living space and needed to fit in well. We're very tight for space, Sjouke, Tracy and the team optimised the space available- helping us find an induction hob with integrated extractor, making the worktop flow, and making the most of corner spaces. As it's a galley they created sliding doors in the corridor unit so that we don't have to dodge open doors, and made the most of the lighting in the area with LEDs in the shelves. Helping at every stage from sourcing the right colour orange for our doors, finding the right sink for us and giving honest opinions based on their experience has really made this a kitchen that is a joy to spend time in. We love our kitchen, it has a lot of personality and it's a thanks to Sjouke and the team for making it a reality.

I spent a long time looking for the right company to build my kitchen. I was sure I didn’t want an off-the-shelf model. Because my family are not planning on moving house again, I was looking for something handmade, bespoke, sustainable, and beautiful… and I love wood. After a lot of research, I found HOUT Kitchens, and Sjouke, Tracy and their team did not disappoint. As all the company’s work is custom-made, they don’t have a showroom. Instead, Tracy took me to two homes with beautiful HOUT kitchens, and two extremely proud owners. Sjouke and Tracy also invited us to the HOUT workshop, showing us their kitchen making process and where they store and dry their wood. It was fantastic to see how the whole process was going to work. From the very first, I felt assured we were in good hands. The design and development process was really satisfying. I had a fairly good idea of what I wanted based on the plans I’d made with our architect, but I loved working with Sjouke to really develop the look and detail of the kitchen. It is indeed the details of our kitchen that really make it stand out and make it so, so striking and pleasing to use. I love that our kitchen is made from sustainable wood and from a single elm tree – the grain of the wood runs across the front of the drawers, and it is one of the most beautiful details of the kitchen; I love our breakfast cupboard with pocket doors where we can hide away our microwave, kettle, and other appliances when not in use; I love the drawer insert which has separators for our cups and glasses, and a handsome sycamore bread bin with a lid. I love that we collaborated with Sjouke and Tracy to find the right appliances that are quiet, beautiful and in perfect synch with the look and feel of our kitchen. Furthermore, when I presented the idea of a slatted screen to divide our sliding doors and window seat to Sjouke, he came back with the perfect solution. Firstly, he took the time to work out how it would ‘float’ off the ground… which is both visually appealing and practical (easy to clean the floor underneath!) Also, his decision to use of two contrasting woods (sycamore rods running through sturdy elm slats) give it a stunning look. It is my absolute favourite part of the kitchen. We feel so blessed to have found real craftspeople and perfectionists to design and make our kitchen… the heart of our home. We will enjoy it for years to come. We absolutely can’t thank Sjouke, Tracy, Henry and the wider team enough for planning, designing and making us such an extraordinary, individual and tailored kitchen. It is just what we wanted and much, much more.

Hout Design made us some bedside drawers which were perfect so we didn’t hesitate to contact them again for our new kitchen. We are so pleased with our kitchen from the design, which incorporated our existing granite worktops and AGA cooker, to the quality of our locally sourced sycamore units and the installation process. Sjouke and Tracy were inspirational, enthusiastic and helpful throughout. Thank you, we love our new kitchen!

We are absolutely delighted with the six dining chairs we recently purchased from Hout Design. The 'spine' chairs made from beautiful Elm look fantastic and are complimented by the Herdwick wool fabric supplied by Cable & Blake. The whole experience of dealing with Sjouke and Tracey has been a pleasure. Sjouke is creative, talented and very easy to deal with. We especially liked how he carefully listened to our needs and made subtle changes to the design to suit our requirements. We can't recommend this company highly enough.

Lovely, friendly team at Hout helped make us a beautiful 1 of a kind table that should last my young sons lifetime. We love having family meals on it and the loves already loves playing underneath it. Its already one of the family.