Mastering the Craft of Functional Kitchen Design

Our National Operations Manager, Dave Wilson, joined an episode of the Trends Property Insight Series, to provide his knowledge and experience on what it really takes to design and deliver a kitchen that works, not just looks good.

Well Dave, thank you very much for sitting down and having a chat with me on the podcast

Today.

I'm looking forward to it.

Thanks Andrew.

Hey, now you've had a wide experience over your years within the New Zealand building

and industry.

So for those people who don't know who you are, can you just tell me a little bit about

where you've come from and how you've ended up here today?

Okay.

Yeah, long and varied career.

But I guess in the construction industry in New Zealand, I joined one of New Zealand's

largest group home builders in 2008.

So right on the GFC and I joined as their business development manager.

So I'm sure some would have questioned my sanity at the time.

But I actually found that was probably the greatest nearly eight years of my career where

I went on a very steep learning curve, especially around a franchised building company.

And I learned a lot about marketing and sales within the construction industry and I've

hung in there sort of ever since.

I've moved from new homes to relocating existing houses to joining Mastercraft Kitchens nearly

seven years ago now.

And yeah, I'm where I want to be.

It's a great industry and get to work with my mates, which is even better.

That's awesome.

So what does day to day look like for you?

Ah, well, I work from home in Tauranga.

So I'm very lucky to live in Paradise but have a national role.

And I guess I oversee, well, I don't guess I do oversee the kitchen side of our business.

So we've got 28 kitchen licensees nationwide.

So they are independently owned and operated, joinery businesses that work under the Mastercraft

umbrella.

So I sort of look after that from an administrative perspective around operational, that type

of thing.

And then I also have an umbrella overview over the whole Mastercraft group.

We have not only kitchens but electrical and plumbing as well.

And I have an overview there from a marketing perspective, so sort of the marketing strategy.

We're a small team.

There's only six of us in the support office.

So as I say, it's a bunch of mates working together.

But I look after the marketing side of things, our event facilitation, that sort of stuff

as well.

Yeah I’ve got a varied role and it's good fun.

Energizes me.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, it would be diverse, right?

Every day would be different.

Totally.

And with the 28 franchisees who are in the joinery cabinet, can I get my designs done

by those people?

How does that work?

Absolutely.

And that's really the beauty of our group.

It's every single business is a design, manufacture, installation business in their

own right.

So they're a standalone local business, sometimes operating under their own brand or their own

business name, but then representing the mastercraft brand.

So yeah, it's the great, you know, think national as far as mastercraft, but be local as far

as our local businesses are, and it's a really great, great way of, great model.

Yeah.

Well, it must be the best of both worlds into seeing what's happening nationally, sharing

feedback ideas between the group and then dealing with it on a local level.

Totally.

So, you know, they're not just battling away as a, as a small to medium, you know, joinery

business on their own.

They're part of a wider group of peers that run similar businesses to their own.

And so when we get together at least three times per year with, with national communication

days and a national conference, they're, they're able to share their business with other people

like, like them that aren't competing with them.

So you end up with that sort of knowledge sharing side of the, of the group is, is what

all of our licensees say is the, is the greatest value of being part of mastercraft.

That's awesome.

And if we start with some of the negative sides of our kitchen projects, right, because

they're complex, they're stressful, they're emotional, there's a lot that goes into it.

So from a broad brush perspective, what are some of the mistakes you, or the greatest mistakes

you see happening time and time again where people haven't planned or maybe approached

the project correctly?

Yeah, it's a great question.

And actually, what it allows me to do is come back to the value of this group.

So I'm not going to give you one man's opinion because I can only pretend to know about

kitchen design, whereas I was able to go out to our nationwide group of designers and throw

some of these questions at them.

Excellent.

So that's prepared me quite nicely for today and hopefully when they're watching, I'm saying

the right thing.

Absolutely.

What they've really said, there's a real theme there and you're quite right, it's the complexity

of a kitchen project.

It's effectively like doing a whole house build, but just within one room of the house room.

So it has all of the same things that are involved.

It's got electrical, it's got plumbing, it's got flooring, it's got everything else going

on before you even put your kitchen cabinetry in there.

And I think that's one of the biggest challenges is that they've said to me is that the clients

needing to understand the bigger picture before they actually get into the project.

So the earlier that they engage a kitchen designer who's been through it hundreds if not thousands

of times before, when this might be the first time the client has ever had a brand new kitchen.

And the kitchen they're living in could be 10 or 15 years old where they've adapted

their lifestyle to their kitchen.

Well now there's an opportunity to see a big blank room and understand actually, understand

what they don't know because we've all got an idea of what we've lived with, but we don't

actually know what's available now.

And so the point of that answer really is to say, well engage the kitchen designer early

on and they can help you fill in all of the gaps of the things that you don't know.

So then actually at the end of the day you walk into the kitchen that you actually want

to come home to.

Yeah, because it seems to be that people will look at a finished kitchen and go oh, looks

beautiful, looks easy, you know, and don't really understand it's sort of the sum of all

its parts.

Totally.

And I've actually bought that all together and it is a bit of a rabbit warren once you get

into it.

Well it can be.

It can be.

But if you get it right from the beginning you end up with the great result at the end.

And so yeah, understand the complexities, get a good designer on side and listen to

their expertise is what I would suggest is a good, you know, good piece of advice.

And you talk about reflecting the way people have lived in the past or lived up until today.

Is it with the designers that they're discovering new technologies, new ways of doing things

that actually change a complete new refresh of how they might think of their future?

Absolutely.

Most people know about the good old traditional triangle design in a kitchen and really that

was the old sort of call it the 40s through to the 90s where we lived in a totally different

way of living.

And I don't mean to be chauvinist in any way but it was very much designed around the female

and the mum in the home and how she would practically work in a kitchen that's changed totally in

this millennium.

So we've sort of gone away from thinking about the kitchen triangle which is the sink

to the oven and the fridge to going actually what specific zones do we need in our kitchen

to make it us be able to live in it the way we want to live, not adapt to living in it

like I said earlier.

And what are some of those common zones that are now sort of turning up in our lifestyle

or use of the kitchen?

Yeah, well it's not only the cooking, cleaning and preparation, it's like do you need a homework

zone, you know?

Yes there are preparation zones, there are cleaning zones, there are cooking zones, you've

got your, if you're talking about your butler’s pantry or your scullery, you know that can

be your preparation zone, all that sort of thing, storage.

So it's again it's sitting back and going well what are the, how do we need to make

these zones work for our lifestyle in our kitchen?

Is there a trend with the sculleries or those sort of pantries or butler’s pantries type

environment that a lot of the functionality is moving sort of behind the closed doors

so that the kitchen's very much a living space as opposed to preparation, cooking and

Cleaning?

Well there is but I also think it depends on the individual or the family that wants to

live in there because if you're an entertaining family and you like to have dinner parties

quite often whoever's prepping the dinner might want to actually be out with the guests

and interacting while you're doing it whereas others might want to be away and hide the

mess away in the scullery or butlers pantry but so it's flexible but there's certainly

a trend towards having that other space and sort of keeping party out the front and business

out the back.

Yeah right, it's a good analogy,

I don't suggest we have mullets as our kitchen, but in certain

parts of the kitchen.

There you go.

Now you talked about trade, you talked about the complexity of the different systems and

services, electrical, plumbing and so forth and now price can be a consideration for a lot

of people, budgets are tight in different situations but how important is it to be able

to engage and interact and save the errors that could happen, the costs that get incurred

by overlapping a time frame, a whole lot of complexities that go on with matching up everyone's schedules?

Absolutely, there is a lot of stress, time and cost that can be lost or whatever within

the process if you don't get that right.

And when it comes to trades, you talk about cost, cheapest is seldom the best or the trade

that can jump at the job because it's urgent, sometimes you might wonder why they're sitting

there waiting for the work.

So around trades, look if you're building a new home often if you're built with a group

home builder or even an independent builder, they will be your project manager.

So they'll do all of the trade coordination and they'll coordinate the kitchen and everything.

Whereas if you're doing a renovation, totally different because you need to understand at

the very beginning of the project, who is the project manager?

Who's responsible for that?

Because it might not be your kitchen designer, in fact very seldom is it your kitchen designer. They're responsible to get you this wonderful kitchen on time, on budget, et cetera and

the kitchen you've always wanted but you need to understand right at the beginning who

is going to coordinate the trades because I believe one of your greatest risks throughout

this complex process that we've talked about is getting the trade coordination wrong.

Most people probably don't think about the fact that most of your trades need to come

back multiple times.

You've got a pre-wire of your electricity, then after the kitchen goes in you've got

to go and fit off and all that sort of thing the same with your plumbing.

So if your Sparky hasn't finished a pre-wire before the kitchen was scheduled to go in,

all of a sudden at the beginning of the job you've got a hiccup and it's going to push

everything out, the timeframes go out and it's just going to become a nightmare.

So like I said before about engaging a designer early, engage your thinking early around who

actually is going to manage this project.

And specifically with the franchisees I go in and talked to them about my project, possibly

talking about the design and joinery.

They've got people that work with all the time I'm assuming in terms of it's not just

an electrician or a plumber, these are people that have worked on jobs and reliably in the

Past.

Absolutely.

So and look if it's not the mastercraft electrician or the mastercraft plumber which

Nirvana for us in the future is that as our group grows and gets extremely well established

in those other two trades that we could be offering that full service which would be fantastic.

But every kitchen designer will know a plumber and an electrician who's done this work before

and can make some good recommendations for you.

And for those people who are looking at engaging plumbers, engaging the electricians, are there

tips and tricks on how to give a better brief to be able to lay out the plan a bit better

if they are having to engage them on their own?

Yeah I'm not sure, just getting that advice from your designer probably is the way to

do that and get them into a pre-contract meeting of some description so that everybody's

on the same page would be the best way.

Now one of the materials we hear about is benchtops and there's some changes happening in terms

of health and safety around some of the materials that are there and trying to get

them eradicated or taken out of the market because they do pose some risks when they're

being installed or being manufactured and living with them.

So for people unaware of what's been happening there can you just explain around that benchtop material?

You'll be talking about respirable crystalline silica.

I wanted you to say it.

There you go.

So I've got that out nicely.

So RCS is easier to say it is the dust that comes from the silica content which goes

into an engineered stone benchtop.

So it's really the binding agent for an engineered stone top.

So you know stone tops used to be or hard solid surface tops used to be sort of a real high-end

Out of a lot of people's budget when you're talking granite and that sort of thing and so a number

of years ago this new product called an engineered stone came out.

It's since been discovered that a lot of that old engineered stone was had a high silica

content which meant that people working with engineered stone if they were subjected to

a lot of dust over a long period of time they could develop silicosis and silicosis attacks

the lungs, scaring on the lungs obviously a terrible situation.

A little bit if you like we used to talk about asbestos and so but I think I'd like to say

too that if you've got an engineered stone top in your home it's not dangerous.

It's like having asbestos in your cephetes.

They're only dangerous if you cut them or break them sort of thing.

So there's no fear around this and what I'd also say too is that the practices in New

Zealand are very good around engineered stone and stone fabrication and part of the value

of being part of the mastercraft group is that any of the fabricators we work with they

had to meet the strict work safe standards around RCS dust and we're sort of proud

to say that our industry in New Zealand was much better than it is overseas and in April

sorry July one July last year the Australian government legislated that all engineered stone

tops in Australia must be silica free and so that was a legislation that came out and we

looked at that as a group and we said well whilst everything is the practices are great

in New Zealand we would still like to you know accelerate a process towards zero silica within

New Zealand and so we got alongside our group and said well the supply chain now is starting

to bring in low silica or zero silica product so let's drive that let's drive that industry

and so we sort of had a stepped program where we said well as of today so last year we'll

take any high silica samples out of our showrooms and start you know directing our clients towards

low silica and eventually zero silica so we would hope that by the end of 2025 we're

pretty close to a zero silica situation but it's important also to note Andrew that there

will always be crystalline silica found in some products even granite has its own amount

of crystalline silica in it so but as long as we've got really good practice in New Zealand

and we've got a process to get to a zero situation we're in pretty good shape. 

Well that's

awesome to hear that you're making progress and it's not too far away yeah it's important

to us I mean end of the day everybody wants their workers to go home safe and have a long

healthy life with their family 

Absolutely and with other materials are in the kitchens

are you seeing any trends in what people are saying to use or things that you think are

better hard wearing they've got longevity these more sustainability are there things happening

in the types of materials people are choosing 

It's probably evolving all of the time you

know some of it's some of the hardware and things like that it's got lifetime guarantees

on it it's some of the products are terrific that are that are brought in and yes there are

there's always new and innovative materials the way that that board is embellished and

that sort of thing so it'll always be evolving at the moment we still make kitchens that are

you know timber cabinetry and that sort of thing what's to say that 3D printing isn't

somewhere down the track

Yeah and what you talk about hardware in terms of some of the

draw systems and bits of that you find if you're going to open homes for example you're often

opening and closing cupboards and the loud banging versus the sort of soft glide can actually

make a huge difference about the quality of the home in general 

Yes yes it can I

like in soft closed drawers now it's a little bit like electric windows in a car you don't

buy one if it doesn't have that right so so soft closed drawers and soft closed cupboards

have become the norm become the standard and and it's become much more affordable so and

that's the sort of thing that if you're living with an old kitchen you don't realize just

how cool it is to have a draw that closes itself and in a soft way 

Yeah so for people

ask sort of arming and arguing about hey we don't want to sell our house we're going

to stay here and renovate it maybe get the kitchen we've always wanted or improve out

the areas of the home or even those you know who might be buying a home and they look at

a space and say hey we can put our new kitchen in once we want to buy the house yeah where

should they start should they you know can they just come in and say hey we're researching

we're thinking ideas have you got stuff you can give them resources they can you know

start that their process 

Absolutely if you look on the master club website we've got

our we've got our renovation guide we've got our look book which is an inspirational book

with some of the greatest kitchens that we've manufactured design manufactured and

stalled over the last 12 months there's this website's like the Trends Property where

you can go and get some really great resource and advice so we always believe that that

education is the is the best the best tool you can have before you start your project so

as I say jumping on and grabbing our renovation guide and looking at the big picture and really

arming yourself with as much knowledge as you can and filling in the gaps of knowing

what you don't already know is the best way to start 

Now you would have seen a whole

lot of kitchens from a lot of houses around the place is there a couple of things or something

that's jumped out of you thought gosh that's really clever oh that's a cool idea that you

know you remember when you've been into someone's kitchen 

There are some pretty cool things some

of the ones are the the the use of the you know when you've got a corner cupboard and

it's really hard to get the stuff at the back if you're climbing in there or

crawling in there if you can there's what's called lemans units that that turn so basically

it's a turntable that the stuff in the back corner that that comes to the front and

yeah things like that or some of the you know you can get electronic opening cupboards and

all that sort of thing there's some really cool stuff out there and then it's nowadays

it's the lighting innovations and things you can do as well because you know task lighting

underneath your your overhead shelves or cupboards and things like that it just becomes

so much more pleasurable to be in a in a modern kitchen 

Yeah because we often using the kitchen

at night and forget about just that ambient nature of the lighting can be a big 

totally

totally right 

Now for people who don't go through this process every day at the moment is there

a time frame in general is it going to take me a month three months six months what should

people expect if they're going to say hey making a decision today we're going to do something with

our kitchen what should they expect in terms of time frame 

Yeah that's um God I don't want

to say how long's a piece of string but you just about can I think what you've got to do is

give yourself as much time as possible and it's always going to take longer than one than you think

but then two than you want so um so I would be you know if I was thinking where we are we today

we're in july um if I was thinking of a kitchen next year I'd be in talking to a designer today

and really setting that in motion and and actually understanding when you need the project to be

finished so you can work back from there and set the little goals in place to ensure or give you

the best chance to get there but I can't sort of say to you well you can walk in and have a kitchen

in six weeks you might do yeah but it totally depends on your project and you know how busy the market

is and all that sort of thing 

And I assume it's also to do with coordinating the trade

totally right 

so that's going to be effective for you meeting the milestones that you mentioned

totally right nobody's sitting around waiting for work you know it'd be nice wouldn't it

And so you talked about plans to bring this sort of 80 odd different franchisees put you know

electrical plumbing and um kitchen together when is that likely to happen is that it this

year thing next year thing for people they're looking for that one stop solution how far away

is that for you as a network 

yeah I can't say for sure um the electrical side of our business

we've got 30 mastercraft electrical licensees nationwide so similar size almost identical

to the kitchen side of things with plumbing we've got six licensees at the moment and our in our goal

is to is to really drive that it takes time because we don't just take on anybody what we want

people who can not only represent the brand well but but actually pass the test of being what we call

a good person that they we want them in our group because it's a long-term proposition so

you know whilst we're interested in anybody who wants to join they've kind of got to pass that

test first and and and and know that they fit the culture of our group so it could take us

you know a number of years to get to that real nirvana point of saying well anywhere in the country

we're all three services and it'll never happen as fast as we want it to yeah but as I say even

if we can't coordinate it now with with mastercraft licensees your designer will know of

other great trades to work with yes 

And with the electricians are they you know come and fix a light

bulb through they're helping with you know the design of your electrical systems like what's the

sort of scope 

Well electrical is about as complex and scope filled as a kitchen itself because it

could be the the powerpoint in your basement all the way to the solar panels on your roof and

everything in between whether it's could be ventilation heating cooling as I say solar there's

nowadays it's home automation and smart houses so electrical has got a really cool scope and it's

a it's a cool moving industry and you know it's pretty exciting for our our electrical licensees

And I'd imagine the same for plumbing because again we don't think about it until we need it or

a break so having someone who can come in and assess you know upgrading your plumbing totally

kind of stuff having that expertise of wide scope as well 

Totally right especially in some of the

older homes in New Zealand and that sort of thing it was the same I renovated my wife and I renovated

our kitchen back in 2020 and you know we had old galv pipes coming in from the road and that type

of thing and so needed to upgrade to mains pressure and all those sorts of things so once again you

need to get those trades in early to make sure that that you're taking care

of the things that need to be taken care of whilst you can because ultimately the functionality

behind a space like a kitchen making sure it actually works for you is much better than one

that just looks pretty 

Absolutely that's a really good point you know that the some people talk

about what's good design versus practicality well good design actually takes account of practicality

when I think about it when we did our kitchen we had an old kitchen in a 1950 house that was

against all rules of practicality the kitchen was actually the the entrance or exit to the backyard

and all that sort of thing and no kitchen designer likes having a thoroughfare through a kitchen so so we

had to look at that project and think totally about practicality long before we thought about

design aspect and that sort of thing I almost liken it to saying well

when you talk good design you might you might want to buy yourself a coupe BMW soft top but

you've got a six person family who likes to go camping on the weekend and tow the jet skis and

and throw the mountain bikes on the back well great design practicality zero so yeah so you've kind

of got to really think about how do I want to live in and around this kitchen with my family

long before we talk about how flash it's going to be 

And I suppose that's why getting the advice

of people who go through the process all the time can tell you the ways you don't even think

that you might live 

Absolutely right and and I remember when we did our kitchen and

Jess the designer from Tauranga came around home and I thought I knew a bit about kitchens and

she thought oh did you think about putting a sink over on that side next to your coffee bar

and it was like oh why didn't I think of that because Jess has done it so many times right

and she knows the things that work and I had no myself and Lisa had no idea

Yeah oh that's good

to know you practice what you preach oh absolutely 

And so can the team come into the house because

they kind of the designers actually come out and see the places 

yes yes absolutely every designer

has a different way of of sharing their expertise but but coming into the home and really having a

look at and and really understanding how your family works is a great way of starting off design

and and they can they can see what you've actually worked with previously if you're going to renovate

and that sort of thing so yeah home visits are a great way to have a consultation. 

Awesome so just

again for people who want to get in touch with one of the franchisees get in amongst the network

get the information such as your guides what's the best way to do that. Well probably just to

to go straight to our website every licensee has their own page on our website so you can

read up about them and what their experience is you can see the galleries of the work that they've

done and make an inquiry through there as I say you can you can download our renovation guide you

can order our lookbook for some inspiration really great way of just sort of building a

a bit of a profile before you you take the next step but I can't sort of emphasize enough about

about getting in early and getting the expertise early to ensure that as I said that kitchen you

come home to is the one you want to come home to. 

Yeah I think it's a great message of you know early

planning good coordination avoid that sort of mistake in time lines and get extended by the

crossover of things that we're working out well so totally right. 

Hey well thanks again for coming in

and traveling from Tauranga and into the studio and having a chat I really appreciate it. It's been

a great pleasure thanks Andrew.