Pocketing doors are popular in concept, but often frustrating in use—awkward to operate, often out of tune, and prone to breaking. Not comfortable settling for frustrations, the team opted to solve for them. Goal being to provide a door system that gracefully glides open and parks in unobstructive places, leaving storage and work areas accessible while in use, hidden away when not.

The new solid brass pivot hinge has three wide swing positions: 90°, 180°, and 270°. This allows us to design kitchens where moving elements add to the feeling of flow and ease, rather than detracting from it.

The hinges are easily tunable to the desired resting position, and designed so pulls have full clearance and do not hit the surface they open against or another pull.

Patent Pending

We’ve added 3 new morticed pulls to our collection and a new, much improved method of attaching all of our morticed pulls—a very high-strength connection that still allows easy removal and replacement if necessary.

Spring 2025 The Eclipse Pull. A circle pull, a little of a departure for us—an experiment introducing a round element to a morticed pull. It can be pulled from below, or from the sides.

Early 2026 The Pitched D Pull. A derivative of our most popular single pull, the D-Pull, designed by our founder in 2005. The Pitched D has a bolder look and is grabbable almost without looking, given its large opening, but like all of our morticed pulls, elegantly disappears into the reveal.

Spring 2026 The Morticed Staple 2. A morticed version of our face-mounted Staple 2. A strong-grip pull, with the added benefit that pulls can be matched in form, as with the Pitched D, on refrigerators, where a face-mounted pull is often required.

Patent Pending

Based on the success of our recently launched Client Experience program, we started a similar feedback program with our architect, design, and GC partners. We’ve learned a lot. The main lessons so far:

• Architects and designers want to know much more about how to design with our products. What are the options? What is flexible, what isn’t? We are excited about this and are developing tools to share more, and with more clarity.
• Detailed shops, early in the process, are so key to both designers and GCs. We hear you and are making these available.
• Fewer impactful reviews during the design process is ideal for most busy architects and designers, saving time and allowing greater focus. This is being implemented in all new projects.
• Renderings are incredibly helpful for our shared clients during the design process. Noted, and coming soon.

In 2023 we purchased our first zero-edge bander—a machine that uses tightly focused heat to fuse edging to panels without a seam—and began using it on soft-touch laminates. The aim was to move away from fragile pigmented varnish for continuous color to something more durable, very matte, and partially repairable.

After 2 years of positive results we purchased a second bander and began using FENIX, which provides many more and better colors. This highly durable material advances the aesthetic feel of color in the kitchen and elsewhere, and is a significant improvement to our material palette.

More detail from the maker of FENIX: “Created with proprietary technologies, the external surface of FENIX is characterised by next-generation acrylic resins, hardened and fixed through an Electron Beam Curing process. Super-matt, pleasantly soft, no fingerprints. Superficial micro-scratches can be thermally healed.”

Supporting homeowners in their use and enjoyment of our product has always been a tenet of Henrybuilt. Our lifetime warranty against defects in craft and material means we take this seriously, always providing care and support for our product over time. But we knew we wanted to do more for our clients.

In January 2025, we began investigating what it would take to create a more structured client experience program that would ensure every Henrybuilt client had the personalized guidance and support they needed throughout their experience of owning a Henrybuilt kitchen. We began collecting qualitative and quantitative data while working with homeowners, continuing through installation and move-in. Most of the data is gathered by observation. We do not do surveys.

Two primary areas stood out. 1. Communication. Clients were curious to hear more from us while their kitchen was in production and during the important moments leading up to delivery. 2. Set up. Clients craved more guidance and advice when setting up the functional components in their kitchens, or with their OpenCase, and to some extent in their dressing rooms.

At the beginning of 2026 we implemented a standard personalized system-setup visit for all clients. If they are within out-and-back-in-a-day driving distance of a showroom, we do it in person. If they are farther afield, we do this by Zoom or FaceTime.

So far, results are very positive, encouraging, and actionable. Clients are enthusiastic, and are getting more performance and flow out of their kitchens. We also get to see more of how clients use their kitchens right after installation, which feeds our improvement process. We are actively sharing this feedback with as many of you as possible.

We will be issuing the first version of a digital product guide in September. It will be organized by room, and illustrate key products and how they can be laid out and configured when designing. It will also provide the variables for each product.

We will be using our Design Engine to illustrate clearly—at a shop-drawing level:

• The relationships between product and architecture
• The critical construction and dimensional aspects a builder needs to run plumbing and electrical, and to understand interferences with irregularities in walls, floors, or ceilings
• Dimensioned cross-sections of products and product configurations where they are required

We will also be using our Design Engine to generate three-dimensional drawings with detail and the ability to render.

In February of next year, we will begin shortening our lead time. Our goal is to drop production lead time to 14 weeks, over the course of 2027, back to where it was before 2020.