Watching the BBC’s ‘Newsnight’ earlier this week one of the politicians being interviewed advocated the reduction of VAT to 5% on home improvements as an immediate way of boosting the rather lacklustre GDP growth figures that had been announced that day. As you can imagine my ears pricked up immediately! The opportunity to reduce the VAT… read more
In the second of our blogs timed to coincide with the start of the kids’ summer holidays this week – and in complete contrast to our first one extolling the virtues of making Marshmallow Crispies – we wanted to explore the issue of child safety in the kitchen and to offer up some measures that… read more
Today’s blog is guest written by Kieron Hayes, friend of Nicholas Hythe Kitchen Design Studio and PR genius! This article was originally publised in the UK version of the online newspaper ‘The Huffington Post’ on 21st July 2011. You can’t escape it it seems. Everywhere you look it’s Rupert this, Rebekah’s resignation that and Andy the other…. read more
How the most important room in the home can help solve a government problem. According to the Office of National Statistics ‘the population of the UK is ageing. Over the last 25 years the percentage of the population aged 65 and over increased from 15 per cent in 1985 to 17 per cent in 2010,… read more
A note of support for our fantastic suppliers. As any entrepreneur will tell you, running a business is hard! As you might expect we spend a lot of management time working on activities designed to grow awareness with potential customers, drive sales and reduce cost. But, equally, we focus a lot of time ensuring we deliver… read more
Small can still be beautiful. When potential customers with small kitchens contact us for the first time they’re often apologetic about the size of room they have – and even wonder if it’s big enough for us to consider! Notwithstanding that we’ll never get to a stage where any kitchen project isn’t worth discussing, we… read more
Retail property crisis – you could’ve fooled us! As another news report (this time from Reuters: ‘UK high street property woes gain as retailers teeter’) about the number of shops closing down, I can’t help but compare the content of this article – and the many other ones like it that have been published recently… read more
Is the future already here? We at Nicholas Hythe are big fans of technology but it has to be technology that makes life easier, more interesting or, let’s face it, more fun! So when we heard about a range of Internet connected kitchen appliances our first thought was: why?! They might be fun (for a… read more
The Pros and Cons of whether to install your new kitchen yourself or have your supplier do it The installation of a fully functioning, beautiful new kitchen can be extremely complex and require a significant amount of planning, organising and coordination of the various tradespeople involved. The biggest mistake some clients make is to underestimate the… read more
The case for the much misunderstood kitchen cabinet. In today’s straitened economic times where cost versus a customer’s budget is often the deal maker or breaker, a question we’re often asked by clients is whether they really need the quality of cabinet that we use, namely 18mm Melamine Faced Chipboard (MFC) all the way round? It’s a… read more
