Twenty years of Naked: one family kitchen and everything that followed

It began with our family kitchen for five. Two decades later, the scale has changed, but the idea remains: make something beautiful, make it properly, and make it for the life that happens around it.

When Jamie and Jayne Everett set out to create their family kitchen in Norfolk, they were not planning the next twenty years. They were thinking about three young children, a busy home and a room that needed to work as well as it looked.

That kitchen became the starting point for Naked. Since then, workshops have grown, new technology has changed the way we make, and showrooms have brought our designs to more people. Through it all, the original brief has stayed with us: a kitchen should be made to be lived in.

See the full timeline

2005: A Kitchen of our own

After moving to Norfolk in the early 2000s, Jamie and Jayne began renovating their kitchen. Their wish list was straightforward: thoughtful design, lasting quality and good value, without compromising on style.

With three young children, durability was essential. This would be a room for cooking and entertaining, for hurried breakfasts and everyone gathering at once. It needed to look good without demanding that family life happen somewhere else.

Their solution was an ambitious one: design and build it themselves.

Daily use became its proving ground. Before there was a workshop or a showroom, there was a family putting that first kitchen through its paces.

2006: The first workshop

A year later, Jamie and Jayne opened their first workshop in Wolferton, Norfolk. What had begun as a project for their own home now had a dedicated space in which to grow.

2012: Room to grow at West Raynham

The next chapter took us to the former RAF base at West Raynham. Two giant aircraft hangars offered a very different setting for a kitchen workshop and remains our manufacturing home today. Every Naked project begins its physical life here in Norfolk.

2014: Investing behind the finish

Some milestones are less visible than a new showroom, but just as important to the finished kitchen.

In 2014, we invested in our first robotic sprayline, laying the foundations for the precision finishing technology we use today. It was an investment in what clients see and touch every day: the surface, colour and finish of their cabinetry.

That year also brought two biomass boilers, which use our timber offcuts and sawdust to heat our Norfolk office and showroom. Sustainability being at the heart of our business.

2019: The next generation joins

Alex, Jamie and Jayne’s eldest son and now our CEO, joined Naked in 2019. His starting point was the workshop floor: a chance to understand the materials, processes and decisions behind every kitchen before helping to shape the business. Working amongst a fabulous, skilled team.

The same year, our Highgate project received Kitchen Designer of the Year recognition at the kbbreview awards. It was a memorable moment in a year that brought both a new generation into the business and recognition for our design work.

2020: Making room for the future

As Naked grew, we continued to invest in and expand our manufacturing process. New machinery, including a bank of CNC machines integrated with a panel loading system (the largest in Europe). This again expanded our manufacturing capability. This took a lot of consideration as for our family, the detail of how a kitchen is made has always mattered as much as its design.

2022: A name for what we believe

In 2022, we gave our longstanding philosophy a name: ‘Built for Life’. It expresses a simple belief that beautiful design and everyday practicality belong together.

Our launch campaign took that idea to playful extremes, but the point was serious. Your kitchen is not made for a photograph. It is made for your coffee spills, enthusiastic pancake flips and cupboards full of mismatched containers. It should be a pleasure to use, not another thing to worry about.

2023: A different kind of showroom

Our first London showroom opened in Bloomsbury in 2023, introducing what we call the ‘reverse showroom’.

Instead of asking clients to choose a finished look, we wanted to help them discover their own. Materials, colours and details became starting points for conversation, with the focus always on the home they were creating rather than the room in front of them.

2024 and 2025: Beyond the kitchen

The next chapter saw the opening of our flagship Kitchens and Designs showroom at 120 Fulham Road, in Chelsea’s design district, followed by our Chelsea office which bought our wider team together.

With the launch of Naked Designs, our approach extended into bespoke joinery for the whole home. Bedrooms, bathrooms, boot rooms, utility rooms, studies and home bars offered new possibilities for the same careful thinking: how a space looks, how it works and how it connects with the rest of the house.

2026: Twenty years, and a new chapter

Our anniversary year brings a new showroom, 39 Regent Street in the heart of Cambridge, overlooking Parker’s Piece. It is another place to explore materials, consider possibilities and begin a conversation with our designers about your home.

We have also introduced our vanity unit collection and celebrated another Kitchen Designer of the Year win at the kbbreview awards, this time for our Camden kitchen.

What began with Jamie and Jayne’s own kitchen has grown into a team of more than 100, connecting our Norfolk workshop with clients through our showrooms and design spaces.

There is much to look forward to. But the most useful measure of the next twenty years will be the same as the first: the kitchens being cooked in, gathered around and enjoyed long after we have handed them over..