For siblings Kate and Simon McGreevy, the passion for the Eastbourne-based bespoke joinery business their father Kim set up in 1978 runs deep.
‘We’d come to the workshop straight after school and sit in the office watching TV while Dad worked or we’d go with him to see clients,’ Kate, 35, says. ‘It was all we ever remembered. The business was always part of our lives.’
Her brother Simon, 30, nods. ‘We were always here or asking Dad about work. And now we’re all grown up nothing has changed. Before Kate and I would go out and chat about music, or films, or friends – now I’ll ask her if she’s sent an invoice.’
That’s because the pair now work with Kim, 67, at Barn Joinery to make it a family affair. Simon is Managing Director of the business, based in Seabeach Lane in a converted 19th century stable, while Kate is the finance manager.
‘I realised that the work Dad did was incredible,’ Simon admits, ‘and that his skills were dying out. I wanted to keep those skills alive to pass on to future generations.’ It’s a serious moment before Kim starts laughing. ‘Well, you better start working on producing an heir then,’ he guffaws.
Simon groans before Kate interjects explaining how her three-year-old-daughter Amelina is a budding bench joiner. ‘She loves ‘working’ with grandpa and has her own toy hammer and saw,’ she says. ‘If she sees Dad nailing something in with a hammer, she grabs hers and joins in. It’s one of her favourite things.’
The dynamic trio – ‘we all have our parts to play in running and developing the business though Kate is the secret boss’ Simon laughs – didn’t always envisage working together. ‘Simon went off to do business studies at college,’ Kim explains. ‘I asked him why and he said: “I want to learn to run a business one day.” I didn’t think he meant my business!’
Afterwards he went to East Sussex College in Eastbourne to study joinery. ‘Though it wasn’t that easy,’ Kim says. ‘Simon was 19 and he wanted to do an NVQ 3 and they thought that was a step too far. But he persisted and the tutor saw him and took him to his workshop and showed him a gothic arch window. He said: “If you can put that together, then you can join the NVQ 3 course.’ He went back an hour later, and Simon had done it. The tutor couldn’t believe it because it would have taken his actual NVQ 3 students at least three weeks to complete it. Anyway, he was true to his word and let him on.’
Simon became an apprentice, under his Dad’s tutelage, and also gained a City & Guilds distinction in architectural joinery.
Kate meanwhile had studied design at the prestigious Goldsmiths college but ended up ‘working in the corporate world of banks with men in suits.’ After working for award-winning design and architectural practices in London for more than a decade she moved back to Sussex – settling in West Hill, Hastings – and joined Barn Joinery in 2019.
‘It made sense,’ Simon says. ‘Kate was forever giving me business advise as she knows so much about, well everything, and eventually, I realised she should be part of our family business.’
So, what’s it like working with your father and sibling? ‘We’re really close,’ Kate admits. ‘But it does have its moments.’
Simon looks serious for a moment. ‘There was a power struggle for a while between Dad and I. He had been doing this all his working life and he found it hard to let go, which is understandable, and I was trying to manage projects. I told him he had to let me run my own projects and trust me. It got a bit tense a few times but nothing we couldn’t fix straight away. That’s normal for families. Now we all get along brilliantly. Dad is so good at what he does that I still love learning from him and listening to his advice.’
Kim smiles. ‘I’m very proud of him – of both of them,’ he says. ‘It’s a real family business now and we all love our work.’
Kate leans forward. ‘Dad is still the real boss,’ she says. ‘He has an excellent eye.’
The one they all feel sorry for is Kim’s wife and the siblings’ mum Jane, a retired nurse. ‘She must resent this business,’ Simon laughs, ‘as all we do when we’re together talk about work – even if we’ve been together all day. But we do ask her opinion a lot.’
Barn Joinery has three parts to its business: bespoke joinery, hand-made kitchens and specialist heritage joinery for Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas. ‘We have a saying between ourselves that we do the jobs that are awkward or no one else knows how to do,’ says Simon.
Along with bespoke bookcases, windows, doors, staircases, fitted furniture and kitchens, they also specialise in refurbishing cabinetry and woodwork in listed buildings. But before they detail their most recent work, there’s a family debate around the question: what is the difference between joinery and carpentry?
‘It’s the difference between being a GP or a surgeon,’ Kate says. Simon shakes his head. ‘No, it’s the difference between being a mechanic and an engineer,’ he insists. Which one is right, I ask Kim. ‘Simon,’ he says without hesitating.
Joinery, they explain, is about quality craftmanship and design excellence. It’s about everything being hand made from scratch, and being built to last a lifetime. ‘Every commission is unique,’ says Kim, ‘and it’s about finding creative solutions to problems.’
‘Without ever bringing any stress into the equation,’ Simon adds quickly. ‘In fact, I’d say that’s one of the most important parts of my job. I work hard at making sure that we always deliver solutions to problems that crop up – because they inevitably always will – without making the customer worry or feel stressed. It’s about creating a seamless relationship between meeting them for the first time to completing the job.’
Kim is living proof of how strong those relationships become. ‘We recently got called to update a kitchen that Dad had put in more than 30 years ago,’ Simon says, ‘and they wouldn’t dream of going to anyone else. There was nothing wrong with the kitchen, they just wanted a little refresh to bring it bang up to date.’
The trio get out photos to show me their latest and favourite projects. There’s a giant banquette for Light at Towner restaurant, a five-metre-long table – ‘that only took three hours, says Kim – and a refurbishment of the bar at what was the Stage Door pub next to the Congress Theatre in Eastbourne, which is now called The Bohemian.
Kim shows photographs of a staircase he saved and rebuilt in Wimbledon that he claims once belonged to Lord Nelson’s first lieutenant and the Rolling Stone’s Ronnie Wood before his client bought it. ‘It was a four-storey circular Reef Spring staircase that was cantilevered,’ he says. ‘Builders were putting on a large extension to the back of the house and it meant that the middle of the staircase was dropping. No one knew how to save it, and I turned up with my gang, and totally dismantled the section and rebuilt it. I was very young, in my 20s then, and initially I think the builders thought I couldn’t do it. After I started work, and they could see we’d be able to rescue it, they bought me a lot of tea and biscuits! When it was finished it looked a million dollars.’
What’s the most unusual things they’ve made? ‘Timberland Boots were doing a photoshoot and wanted some really curly wood shavings,’ Kim says. ‘We took 20 minutes to give them six bags of the curliest, most aesthetically pleasing wood shavings. That was funny.’
He also has made coffins for a friend, his parents and his brother-in-law. ‘It was a real honour to do that for them,’ he says. ‘My friend had been a captain on oil tankers and so I did a nautical theme with rope, coloured stripes as he used to race speedboats, and a Captain’s cap. It was an honour to do it. I was OK doing my dad’s, but I have to admit I did get emotional doing my mum’s and had to have a moment. But it was very special.’
It was the culmination of 47 years’ work – a career that started after Kim left school at 13 with no qualifications. ‘I was good with my hands though,’ he says, and after completing a joinery apprenticeship he set up his own business in his garage. Barn Joinery was born after he moved into his first premises, a converted barn in Litlington, specialising in cabinetry, fitted furniture and bespoke joinery. The legacy now continues with the help of his children and a team of three John Barry, Daniel Budd and their latest apprentice Hunter Tennant.
As for the future, they all have plenty of plans. Simon wants to build his own bee hives and make their own honey as well as fitting solar panels to make them energy efficient. ‘We already use green electricity,’ he explains, while Kate wants to knock down two parts of the office to create a studio where they can meet clients. ‘If they come here they see the work we are doing as you have to literally walk through the workshop and they get it,’ she says. ‘This would be an extension of that.’ They all want to do more heritage joinery. ‘We want to preserve the wonderful history of East Sussex for generations to come,’ Kate explains. ‘It’s a real honour.’
Kim would like to start joinery masterclasses where he can pass on the skill set he has to others ‘as they’re no longer on the joinery syllabus and are literally dying out.’
But for now he will continue to advise Simon and Kate. ‘This is a real family run business in it’s truest sense,’ Kate says, ‘and we couldn’t be happier. Because it’s all so effortless between us we can focus on creating special relationships with customers and delivering high spec joinery and heritage work that no one else can do here. We just want to make Dad proud every day.’ At that Kim smiles. ‘They already do,’ he says.
