About The Kitchen Lady
An Independent Kitchen Designer
Great Design For Everyone
The Kitchen Lady was started in October 2017 under the name Covey Kitchens to offer great kitchen and home design to everyone. By offering both remote and in-person design option, Emily can design for any budget and any location.
Based near Taunton, Somerset, Emily offers her design skills on an "as much or as little" basis to cater for every budget.
What's not to love?
What do you do exactly?
A Helping Hand
Everyone deserves good design, it elevates the value of your home both aesthetically and functionally, making your life easier. Emily offers a holistic and practical approach to your home, giving a guiding hand, usually only found in showrooms, to create a space that fits around you and your family. You will be presented with high quality 3D drawings to bring your new space to life before giving you enough support to feel confident sourcing your own suppliers and managing your own budget.
We don't just design kitchens
It's not just a kitchen, it shapes so much of your life!
How you interact with your family
The layout of a kitchen hugely affects interperson interactions. By creating a social space, you can teach the children to cook through just being in the room with you whilst you help with homework or art projects. You can chat to your partner after a long day at work or catch up with friends whilst you prepare them lunch.
Allowing independence for children, elderly or disabled through design is also incredibly empowering, one of my proudest kitchen designs brought a wife/carer relationship back to a husband/wife relationship after many years of a debilitating illness (read about it here). If children can reach the crockery, they can help lay up or get breakfast for themselves, grow in confidence and develop their skills.
How green can you live
It's the small actions like recycling that make a difference, but if it isn't easy, then it won't be done. If the kitchen is the size you need and no bigger, it wont be filled with excess pots, pans and tins of food. It is these design decisions early on that will shape the eco footprint of your home.
How much do you enjoy cooking
Cooking needs to be fun and having a logical layout so everything is where you need it is so important. It quickly gets dull trapsing across the room AGAIN for another utensil. If you enjoy cooking, then you'll eat healthier, your body will reward you with energy and better mood, amazing you with how much easier life feels.
So you see, we don't just design kitchens!
But this can be applied to any room in the house, from utilities, pantries, dressing rooms and bathrooms, we can design them all for you, just ask.
Are your kitchens expensive?
Online and Off-the-shelf Kitchens
We are absolutely not just for expensive kitchens! Great design is for everyone and for every budget which is why we offer hourly work through to design packages and sourcing depending on how much help you need. For those looking to buy an online kitchen, it can be a daunting process but gives you incredible value for money. Emily can help guide you through the design and purchase process so that you feel confident in what you are buying. We now offer a quoting service from our Black Book which you can find more about in our design packages.
Bespoke Kitchen Design & Sourcing
For bespoke designs, Emily loves working alongside local English cabinetmakers, supporting the amazing talent in Somerset. She has curated a large Black Book of local cabinetmakers and suppliers so she can recommend the best people for your style, timescale and budget if required. Combining her designs and their skills, they can compete against the design and quality of internationally recognised British kitchen names such as Tom Howley, Plain English, Smallbone and DeVol, but without the hefty price tag.
Why Use The Kitchen Lady
By using The Kitchen Lady, you are getting a personal, experienced service that is available throughout the duration of your project and beyond. With a wealth of experience working with older homes and period properties, you can be sure that each kitchen, cabinet and home design will respect the character, age and quirks of your home.
From bouncing a few ideas around over a cup of tea, or having Emily walk you through your whole kitchen project, you can be sure that she will always be ready to help.
Who are you?
Hello, I'm Emily!
Emily is a qualified designer with a degree in design from Loughborough University, specialising in Inclusive Design (design for disability), as well as having experience working for luxury kitchen names DeVol and the Chalon; the latter where she was head designer for the South-West for two years before leaving to set up The Kitchen Lady in 2017.
Emily's Experience and Influences
Here is a quick history of Emily and the background to The Kitchen Lady. I'm design obsessed and I love it!
Degree from Loughborough University
Emily joined Loughborough University in 2011, graduating three years later with a BA in Industrial Design and Technology. Her degree gives her the skills to balance aesthetics with ergonomics before using her technical knowledge to transform plans into reality.
European wide competition
Emily dedicated her final year to designing inclusive tableware for people with Parkinson's Disease. She created a cutlery and crockery set which enabled people affected with this debilitating illness to use the same tableware as their friends and family, reducing the stigma and associated health and social detriments. This brought her 3rd place in an European wide competition designing for vulnerable generations.
Junior Designer at DeVol
DeVol was founded by two graduates from the same Loughborough Design course that Emily was on and so she took a part time job at DeVol to explore the options that her degree could give her.
Turns out, she rather enjoyed this direction!
Head Designer at Chalon
After only a few years since graduating, Emily found herself as the Head Designer in the South-West for Chalon. By working at headquarters where the furniture was made, she learnt how to create beautiful, high end furniture and learnt more about traditional furniture construction and finishing.
Founded Covey Kitchens
In 2017, Emily wanted to be able to offer great design to more people at affordable prices whilst supporting local makers around Somerset to create beautiful kitchens.
In 2021, we had a complete rebrand as The Kitchen Lady UK to show the professional but fun face of the growing company.
Talking to customers, Emily realised that Covey Kitchens wasn't an easy name, but she was often refered to as The Kitchen Lady when clients were talking to their friends. This fully encapsulated the feel that Emily wanted - self explanatory, fun and memorable!
With help from Lilac&Love, this beautiful new logo was created to bring the reband to life. We hope you love it as much as we do!