Team training for kitchen & bath organizations
Train your designers to get it right the first time.
Bring 30 years of master-level kitchen and bath training to your whole team — new hires ramp faster, experienced designers close old gaps, and costly mistakes stop.
The real cost of untrained designers
Every preventable mistake comes out of your margin.
There's no formal path for learning how to design kitchens and baths correctly. So most designers learn on the job — and the gaps in their training show up in your business, not theirs.
- Reorders and rework. A missed clearance or wrong spec means cabinets come back, jobs stall, and the margin on that project evaporates.
- Slow, expensive onboarding. New hires take months to become trustworthy on real projects, pulling your senior people off billable work to train them.
- Designs that don't close. Designers who can draw but can't confidently present and sell their work leave revenue on the table at the table.
- Talent that's hard to find — and keep. Fully trained K&B designers are scarce. The faster way to get them is to build them, and people stay where they're invested in.
What your team learns
The method that prevents costly mistakes.
Everyone makes mistakes — the difference is a system that catches them before they reach the client. Other training teaches rules to memorize. Karen teaches two things together: the reasoning that tells a designer what to check, and the discipline of actually checking — every order, every clearance, every spec, every time.
Design principles and reasoning
The "why" behind every correct layout, clearance, and specification — so designers understand what they're checking and why it matters, instead of guessing.
Disciplined checking habits
The verification routines that turn knowledge into reliability. This is the difference between a designer who knows the rules and one who never ships a costly error.
One curriculum covers the whole role:
Who this is built for
Designed for organizations, not just individuals.
A strong fit if you are…
- A cabinet dealer or showroom training in-house design staff
- A multi-location or franchise standardizing design quality across teams
- A home-center or big-box design group onboarding designers at scale
- A remodeler whose team needs real design and sales skills
Probably not a fit if…
- You're looking for free content with no plan to invest in your people
- Your team is closed to learning and certain they already know it all
- You're outside the kitchen, bath, cabinetry, or remodeling space
How it works
Three steps to a better-trained team.
Book a discovery call
We talk through your team — size, experience levels, and where the gaps are costing you. No pitch, just a clear read on what would help.
Get a plan built for your team
You receive a tailored path through the Academy's classes, scoped to your team's experience levels and goals — billed as an ongoing team membership, priced to your team size.
Your team trains — and keeps training
They stay enrolled in live weekly classes and a growing on-demand library, with direct access to Karen — and every new hire you add steps right in.
What's included
Everything your team needs to design with confidence.
- NKBA-CEU certified coursesSeven independently vetted, CEU-eligible courses that keep your designers' credentials current while they learn.
- Live weekly classesTwo live classes every week across design, sales, cabinetry, appliances, software, and AI — taught, not pre-recorded and forgotten.
- On-demand training libraryA growing library of recorded classes so new hires can ramp on their own schedule and your team can review anytime.
- Direct access to KarenWhen a designer is stuck on a real project, they can run it by a master designer — something no faceless course platform can offer.
- Sales training that closesThe same diligent thinking applied to the sales table — so designers present and sell their work, not just draw it.
Training that doesn't end when the class does
Built to keep working — long after day one.
A one-time class gets forgotten. A standing team membership keeps your whole roster sharp as people come and go and the tools keep changing.
New hires, folded in
Your roster never stops changing. Every new designer steps straight into the same training — no scrambling to onboard them from scratch.
Always current
2020 Design updates, new AI tools, fresh product lines, and CEU credits that must be renewed — your team stays ahead instead of falling behind.
Progress you can see
A simple check-in on what your designers are learning and the CEUs they're earning, so the value is visible to you — not just felt.
Why West Highland
Not another self-paced course library.
Most online training hands your team videos and disappears. This is training built and delivered by a working master designer who's still in the field.
The standard your team learns
Designed to a level clients notice.
Your designers won't just learn to avoid costly mistakes — they'll learn to produce designs like these — the kind that earn referrals and close the next project.
Designed in 2020 Design — AI enhanced
Your instructor
Karen Hockley, CMKBD, CAPS
Karen has spent 30 years in kitchen and bath design and holds the field's top credentials — Certified Master Kitchen & Bath Designer and Certified Aging in Place Specialist. She made mistakes early, like every designer does. Three decades of deliberate practice and obsessive checking made her nearly mistake-proof in the field, with a high closing rate to match.
Companies already send their design teams to Karen so they get it right the first time. That's the whole promise — made by the people who train with her.
She's honest about how it works: she teaches the method; the designer who does the checking, every time, earns the result. That candor is exactly why her training is trusted.
5-star Google review
"Karen is truly phenomenal. Her charismatic personality and deep knowledge of the 2020 Design system make her exceptional — patient, clear, and very easy to understand."Catalina Focil
A note on investment
Priced to your team, not a per-seat sticker.
Team training isn't one-size-fits-all, so the price isn't either. On a short discovery call we scope the right plan for your designers and quote based on team size.
Set against the cost of a single preventable reorder — or one slow, expensive hire — training your team usually pays for itself well before the year is out.
Book a discovery call
A short, no-pressure conversation about your team and what would actually move the needle.
Start the conversationQuestions from team leaders
Before you book the call.
We're a small shop — is this only for big companies?
Not at all. Plans scale from a single designer you want to develop up to multi-location teams. The discovery call is where we right-size it to your shop.
How disruptive is this to daily operations?
Designed to be low-disruption. Live classes are scheduled and the on-demand library lets your team learn around their project work rather than stopping it.
Does online training really build real-world skill?
It does when it's taught live by a working designer and backed by direct access for real project questions — which is exactly how this is built. It's mentorship at scale, not a video dump.
It's one instructor — what about continuity?
That's the point. Your team learns one coherent method from a master designer, reinforced by a growing recorded library so the training is always available, not dependent on any single live session.
Do the courses count toward NKBA continuing education?
Yes — seven of the courses are NKBA-CEU certified, so your designers earn continuing-education value while they build skill.
Will my experienced designers get anything out of it, or is this just for juniors?
Both. New designers get a real foundation fast. And experienced designers — even the confident ones — almost always find gaps they've worked around for years, plus the newer 2020 Design and AI skills the field is moving toward. The teaching respects their experience; it doesn't talk down to them.
Build the team you wish you could hire.
Tell us a little about your designers and we'll set up a short discovery call — no pressure, just a clear path forward.
Tell Karen about your team and she'll set up a short discovery call:
Request Your Discovery CallPrefer to reach out directly? [email protected] · 717-798-7561