I had a few people in the showroom this month who’ve all said something remarkably similar…

They commented their oven couldn’t quite handle the Christmas dinner like it used to.

For a lot of people, Christmas means one long day of cooking and pushing their kitchen to its limits.

So, I have to ask…

How did yours handle it?

Were trays being rotated because one side is hotter than the other?

Was it a struggle to cram in all the roasties, carrots, parsnips, turkey, and sausages?

Or was there any stress over juggling timings and temperatures?

If any of that sounds familiar, there’s a simple way to make sure next Christmas feels very different.

But it needs thinking about now.

You see, range cookers aren’t off-the-shelf appliances; they’re made to order.

Which means lead times are measured in months, not days…

Sometimes three. Sometimes four. Sometimes even five or six, depending on the model and specification.

That’s completely normal for a hand-built cooker. But it means you can’t treat it like something you’ll just get around to. It has to be planned well in advance.

And what most customers don’t consider is this:

You don’t need a finished kitchen to place an order.

In most cases, all that really matters is that:

• the layout is reasonably settled
• you have a rough idea of when the floor will be down
• and I know the cooker can actually fit into the room

From there, everything can be planned backwards…

A delivery window that fits your build. An installation that doesn’t hold anyone up. And a cooker that can slot right in (without sitting in a garage for months).
Now, I’m not saying everything has to be perfect. Dates can usually be nudged if trades overrun. But it’s worth thinking about now.

Trust me, it’s much harder trying to rush a made-to-order cooker because everything else suddenly is ready!

That’s why January is such a good time to think about this stuff while everyone is looking ahead.