A firm which started out in Bingley nearly 130 years ago making coffins is now pulling in customers - by selling facelifts.

That's facelifted kitchens and bedrooms rather than cosmetic improvements to sagging jowls or neck wrinkles.

Dismayed by the prevailing fashion of ripping out perfectly serviceable kitchen units, Atkinson Kitchens & Bedrooms devised the motto: "Don't replace it. Reface it."

Now the Bradford-based firm has carved out a niche for itself in an expanding but nevertheless highly competitive market, supplying new hand-crafted kitchens and bedrooms but also offering "refurbs".

Atkinson's has just opened a new showroom in Thorncliffe Road, just a stone's throw from Bradford City.

The company was formed in 1875 by William Rhodes Atkinson to supply local undertakers.

But it rapidly progressed to making war-time ammunition boxes, doors for London's Park Lane Hotel and heavy duty lock gates for the Leeds-Liverpool canal.

Anyone relaxing on the beach at Blackpool eating an icecream has probably sat in an Atkinson's deckchair.

The firm's traditional door-making arm, Atkinson Joinery, finally ceased production last year. The site bordering Poplar House and the town centre is due for re-development.

Now the fifth generation of the firm is determined to cash in on the trend for modern kitchens crammed with stainless steel and granite work surfaces, aided by a virtual epidemic of DIY and cooking programmes.

Director Matthew Dobbins said the grand plan was for the firm to open up additional branches in London or Kent or in the Harrogate/York/Ripon areas where it attracted some of its most lucrative business.

"We cater for most budgets," he said. "A lot of kitchen people just import but we have the ability to make any size and use all the old-fashioned methods. We're making stuff people can't get anywhere else."

Although the company occasionally gets big contracts for complete re-fits, the three dozen-strong firm has built up a reputation for refurbishing rather than totally re-fitting kitchens - keeping the main units and putting on new fronts and doors.

The same principle applies to bedrooms, which Mr Dobbins said had become a new growth area.

"Three years ago it was only around five per cent of the business. Now it's grown to 30 per cent," he said.