We meet the legendary interior designer to talk about his new kitchen range and his (very candid) thoughts on design and retail.

Welcome to the kbbreview Podcast, your host is Andy Davies and today we're in a dreary old loft in South London and our challenge is to turn this empty bit of audio space into a fully-fledged podcast episode in just 45 minutes BUT we only have a budget of 20p, some MDF, a bag of screws and a router.

And yes, today we're talking to Changing Rooms legend Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen - but of course we're doing him a massive disservice by limiting his extensive career to just that one show, no matter how impactful it was.

He was - and is - an extremely accomplished interior designer of course, but he has also been educating the public about design on TV for, brace yourself, nearly 30 years - Changing Rooms started in 1996.

After a bit of back-and-forth with manufacturers, he has just designed and launched his own kitchen range - called Quintessential - specifically for independent kitchen showrooms and, as you'll hear in this interview, he LOVES independent kitchen showrooms.

This is, genuinely, a fantastic interview - mainly probably because it's actually Andy's kbbreview colleague George Dean doing it - and Laurence is as fabulous as you would expect but he is also incredibly candid and open about his thoughts on kitchen retail AND his previous endorsement deals with multiples - listen out for the bit where he gets slow hand-clapped on a plane thanks to his association with Moben.

It's all brilliant stuff and it's clear that he really does love design and what it can achieve if done properly and with conviction so we really can't recommend this one highly enough!

So over to George Dean and Lawrence Llewelyn-Bowen…

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Welcome to The kbbreview Podcast, your host as always is Andy Davies.

Neptune has grown from a humble start in the 1990s to become one of the UK’s most distinctive premium home and kitchen brands. With around 30 of its own showrooms and 80 more retail partners it has become one of the largest independent kitchen retail networks in the UK with little fanfare.

And 'brand' is the most important word. Neptune, as far as co-founder John Sims-Hilditch is concerned, means something more than just a logo or a name, it is a philosophy that permeates every aspect of the business.

Andy went to meet him at the company's impressive HQ and showroom just outside Swindon...

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Welcome to The kbbreview Podcast, your host is Andy Davies and this episode comes LIVE from the InstallerSHOW 2025.

This is the third and final LIVE episode we recorded at the show and we’re finishing with a question every single KBB showroom has on their mind– what should I be doing with social media?

And in particular we’re looking at small to medium sized showrooms that don’t have social media teams and instead are trying to fit it into the rest of their very busy days. So if you’re time-poor and have limited resource – this is the episode for you.

• What works and what doesn’t?
• Where should you be spending that limited time and resource most effectively
• How do you even know it’s working?

We have some top experts from the frontline to talk it all through, Kira Blume from Krantz Designs, Adam Jones from Cwtch Haus and Hayley Simmons from agency KBB Marketing.

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