The kitchen fitter who builds campers

John Rafferty spent 20+ years running Carisbrooke Kitchens & Wardrobes before he built his first camper. That is not a detour from the story. It is the whole story.

A campervan interior is a kitchen that has to survive being driven around Ireland. Same carcasses, same hinges, same face frames, same tolerances, except that nothing is square, every surface curves, and the whole thing moves at 100km/h. Most conversion outfits come at it from the vehicle side and learn the carpentry. John came at it from the carpentry side, and it shows in the details: lockers radiused to follow the roof line, doors that still close square after a season, units fixed to the van structure rather than screwed to the lining.

Why repairs matter here

A lot of what comes into the workshop is somebody else’s work gone wrong: water tracking in behind a badly sealed window, a floor that has been soft for two seasons, furniture that came away from the wall. The carpentry background is exactly what those jobs need, and John will tell you honestly whether a van is worth repairing before you spend anything.

One van at a time

There is no sales team and no production line. You deal with John from the first phone call to the handover walkthrough. That limits how many builds happen in a year, which is the trade-off for the standard of the work.

The workshop is in Navan, Co. Meath, and he takes work from Navan, Trim, Kells, Drogheda, Dublin and across Leinster.