Over the past five years Cornwall College Camborne has grown its kitchen production project, into designing, producing and fitting a fully fitted bespoke kitchen, as part of the level three hand-crafted furniture diploma.

The college’s original project started with a simple kitchenette for an on-site building, and then over time the scale of the concepts has grown to a kitchen island, developing into a brand new kitchen for a paying client.

Course manager for furniture studies, Richard Buckingham, said: “Our level two and level three students attended a site visit where we conducted a site survey and client consultation. Plans were drawn up using google sketch and then these were presented to the client. Our students then spent the next few months building the individual cabinets which due to curves in the design added to the challenge and complexity.”

The idea behind the project is to help fulfil certain elements of the course including employability skills and also to cover various aspects of the qualification including planning for production, research and product development within the furniture industry.

Client and staff member Gill Tonkin, added: “The students were completely professional from the start, returning to double check measurements and ensuring that I was happy with their concepts and designs as the build proceeded. The finished product is fantastic and looks amazing, I am really happy with the end product.”

Richard added: “For our students to be involved in a real project has provided them with an invaluable experience and I’d just like to thank Rozen Furniture who provided us with additional support and also to Joe Kennedy an ex-student who is now a student teacher who provided lots of advice and kept the project on-track.”

For more information on the range of wood and carpentry courses available across The Cornwall College Group visit www.cornwall.ac.uk or call 0845 22 32 567.