By the 1970’s Chipboard and Formica were challenging the look of the traditional kitchen. My dad clearly remembers being told that “carpentry was old hat and the future was plastic, no one would want wood anymore.” What in fact happened was a new style of kitchen was being created. I’m going to explain a bit about the manufacturing process to help show the changes from the original wood kitchens. In the early days the chipboard was supplied as chipboard, no design or colour, just bear chipboard and the kitchen company glued the laminate on. At the time my dad was working for a company in Leeds and the process went something like this. The chipboard was cut to size by a guy on a circular saw called bob who only had a total of 6 fingers left, The Formica was then cut and glued onto the chipboard by another guy who spent all day working with contact adhesive and no ventilation (but it was the seventies). The parts were then passed to the bench team for construction and finally taken to the customer for fitting. The fitting was expected to be done in the day.

Another important development that came with all of this was an overlay hinge. In the first kitchen you will remember me mention that the doors sat within timber frames (now referred to as in frame) but now a hinge was available so when the doors are shut the edge of the door lines up with the outside of the cabinet. (Referred to as Overlay) Well combine that with the ability to have big panels or doors out of one flat piece of chipboard created a whole new way of not only building kitchens but the way they would look. In addition to the advances in the materials kitchens were made out of there were big advances in the appliance market also leading to more of a amalgamation between the appliance and unit. Up to now the appliances stood by themselves and so did the cabinets, (some kitchens still have all freestanding appliances and again this shows the variety of style in today’s kitchens). Now built in appliances were a lot more readily available.

At this time although there may have been some nationwide kitchen companies most people called on their local kitchen company when they needed a kitchen and it was manufactured and fitted for them to suite their individual kitchen. I.e. bespoke kitchens were the standard.