A cabinet shop that decided to stop doing everything else
Nora Lindberg started Hearth & Grain in a rented bay on Atwood Avenue in 2009 with one shaper and a used spray gun. Seventeen years later we still build in the same building and we still only do kitchens.
- Founded 2009
- 451 kitchens
- Madison, Wisconsin
Seventeen years, one street, one room type
The shop started as a general cabinet business. We built built-ins, laundry rooms, garage storage and the occasional bookcase. Kitchens were about a third of the work and all of the interesting problems.
In 2014 we turned down a whole-house remodel that would have kept four people busy for six months, and took three kitchens instead. That turned out to be the decision the whole company is built on. We got faster, the crew got better, and the number of things that could go wrong shrank considerably.
Today everything happens in the same building on Atwood Avenue: the studio where you sit at the sample bench, the drawing office, the machine room, the spray booth and the loading dock your cabinetry leaves from. The average distance from our saw to a client's kitchen is about four miles.
We are deliberately not growing into a second crew or a second room type. The constraint is the point.
2418 Atwood Avenue
Studio, drawing office, machine room and spray booth, all in one building since 2009.
Four commitments, and what they cost us
These are not posters on a wall. Each one has turned away work we could have taken.
We only do kitchens
One room type means our crew has installed the same cabinet detail four hundred times. Specialists make fewer mistakes, and the mistakes they do make are ones they have seen before.
We say no in writing
If refacing is the honest answer, the proposal says refacing. We have talked more than one client out of a full remodel and we have never regretted it.
The schedule is a promise
You get a week-by-week schedule at contract and an update every Friday. Ninety-four percent of our projects in the last two years closed on the contract date.
Surprises get priced, not absorbed quietly
Anything found behind a wall gets photographed, priced and approved by you before we carry on. No silent change orders on the final invoice.
Six people, and you will meet most of them
There is no account manager layer here. The person who draws your kitchen is in the shop when it gets built.
Come and say hello
Nora Lindberg
Founder and lead designer
In the trade since 2003
Nora trained as a cabinetmaker before she trained as a designer, which is why her drawings tend to be buildable. She started Hearth & Grain in a rented bay on Atwood Avenue in 2009 with one shaper and a used spray gun.
NKBA Certified Kitchen Designer (sample credential)
Marcus Adeyemi
Stone and fabrication lead
18 years with stone
Marcus runs templating, slab layout and installation. He will drive to the yard with you and he will tell you, politely but clearly, when a slab is going to fight the layout you have chosen.
Certified in digital templating and seam fabrication
Ellis Tran
Project lead
12 years on site
Ellis is the person in your house most days and the person who sends the Friday schedule update. He has run more than 140 kitchen builds and has never once lost a punch list.
EPA Lead-Safe Certified Renovator (sample credential)
Dagmar Petrov
Shop foreman
26 years building cabinets
Dagmar builds every box, door and drawer that leaves the Atwood shop. If a reveal is out by a sixteenth, it does not get loaded on the truck.
Runs our finishing booth and QC checklist
Rosalind Mbeki
Selections and client liaison
9 years in interiors
Rosalind runs the sample library and the selections process. She keeps the spreadsheet that tracks every finish, lead time and backorder so nothing arrives in the wrong week.
Manages our material library and sample loans
Curtis Haugen
Estimator and permits
15 years in construction
Curtis writes the proposals and pulls the permits. He is the reason our contracts itemize permit fees instead of burying them in a line called miscellaneous.
Handles Dane County municipal submissions
Seventeen years of kitchens, in four numbers
- Kitchens completed
- 451
- Since opening the Atwood shop in 2009
- Average rating
- 4.9
- From 412 verified reviews across four platforms
- Finished on schedule
- 94%
- Against the contract date, last 24 months
- Years in Madison
- 17
- Same shop, same street, since 2009
Sample figures for this demonstration site.
Licensed, insured and happy to prove it
Certificates are issued to every client at contract signing. Sample numbers are shown on this demonstration site.
WI Dwelling Contractor #DC-1180224
Licensed and bonded in the State of Wisconsin. Sample license number.
EPA Lead-Safe Certified Firm
Required for work in homes built before 1978, which is most of our Madison portfolio.
NKBA member studio
National Kitchen and Bath Association member since 2012. Sample affiliation.
$2M general liability
Certificate of insurance issued to every client at contract signing.
Workers compensation
Full coverage for our own crew, verified annually for every subcontractor.
Lifetime cabinetry warranty
On cabinetry built in our shop. Sample warranty terms, attached to your contract.
WI Dwelling Contractor #DC-1180224 (sample). All figures and license numbers on this site are illustrative samples.
Come and sit at the sample bench
Ninety minutes, no charge, no obligation. Door samples go home with you the same day.
Showroom on Atwood Avenue, Tue to Fri 9 to 5 and Sat 10 to 3.