Kitchen makeover franchise Dream Doors opened its latest UK showroom in Ware today (21 January), in a gala ceremony that saw Town Mayor, Cllr Phyllis Ballam cut the ribbon to officially open the new showroom.

Dream Doors is the biggest kitchen makeover franchise in the UK, and the new Dream Doors East Herts showroom brings high quality replacement kitchen doors and kitchen makeovers to Ware, Stevenage and the surrounding area.

The new showroom is located at Star Street, Ware, and is owned by local couple Tom Crossley and Carly Eden. Carly’s father Nigel – a franchise owner with more than 20 years’ experience running McDonalds and Dominos franchises – is a co-owner of Dream Doors East Herts, making it a true family-run business.

“We want to establish the showroom as a high quality local business, where people can give their kitchen a makeover for a fraction of the cost of a full re-fit,” said Carly Eden. “The local area and the market town of Ware especially, is incredibly important to us, and we’ll be using local fitters and suppliers all the time. We have all the support that comes from being part of a national retailer, but with the local knowledge and expertise that is so important to Ware.”

Dream Doors is the UK’s leading kitchen makeover firm, and has a presence on high streets all across the country. It transforms old and tired kitchens by replacing doors, worktops and drawer fronts, for around 40% of the cost of a full kitchen re-fit, and completed with minimum disruption in just 48 hours.

Tom Crossley has spent much of his career as a restaurant manager, in charge of various restaurants at Heathrow Airport, managing up to 60 staff in a busy environment. Carly Eden has worked in sales and marketing in the travel industry, and together feels that their skills are highly complementary and well-suited for owning a franchise.

“I’d seen my father achieve great success as a franchisee, so when Tom and I decided to work together, franchising was the obvious choice,” said Carly Eden. “Dream Doors seemed like an opportunity too good to pass up: there’s an on-going consumer demand for kitchen makeover services; Dream Doors is an honest business, with quality products, a focus on customer satisfaction and a proven and established business model; and it gave Tom and I the opportunity to work in the local community, something important to us both.”

Carly and Tom have already been extremely busy before their showroom opening, processing dozens of orders already. Dream Doors MD Troy Tappenden believes that Dream Doors East Herts will be a major success in 2016:

“The prior careers of Carly and Tom saw them develop extensive sales and marketing skills and the ability to thrive in a busy, high pressure environment – this is perfect preparation for Dream Doors,” he said. “Bringing their experience, local knowledge and expertise to our proven model means that Dream Doors East Herts could go on to be one of our best performing franchises.”