About Milestone Kitchens
The Milestone Factory is situated on a typical, thorn-veld farm in KwaZulu-Natal. The dusty, untamed but vibrant setting has inspired the design of our kitchens, particularly the African Allure range. We care about the environment and our beautiful country and strive to be environmentally friendly wherever possible. We use wood that comes from nearby FSC forests sustainable forests and recycle and use alternatives to plastic whenever we can in our packaging process.
Meet Our People
In 1999, Milestone Kitchens was a three-man team, functioning in the garage of Silvia Miles’ home. Now the garage has grown into a 650 square meter factory and the three-man team has expanded to employ and train up to 30 people from our local community.
We are able to compete with the best kitchen companies in the country. We have all worked hard to establish a successful business and we are very proud of our product.
We think our team is amazing (we’ve been told it’s worth buying a unit just to meet us). We’d like to give you a short introduction to the brains behind the magic.
DISCLAIMER: This is not a dating site.
Admin and Design Team
Silvia Miles
Official Title: Creative Director
What she’s doing when she’s not at work: Teaching step aerobics and rebounding classes.
Favourite MK range: African Allure
Silvia is the founder of Milestone Kitchens. She started Milestone furniture in 2001 and then saw a need and specialised in freestanding kitchens in 2010. She handed the managerial reins over to her daughter Sabrina in 2020 but is still part of the business in a creative capacity (i.e. she does the fun stuff).
Silvia has a gift for making spaces beautiful, she is also a mother and an excellent cook – this combination has (rather effectively we’d say) translated into an expert ability to design practical and beautiful furniture for kitchens and spaces, and evolved Milestone Kitchens into what it is today.
Silvia has a BA degree in painting and geography (cum laude I’ll have you know) with honours in painting, and her PGCE. The PGCE has been really useful for the day care program we run for our staff kids. The rest of her qualifications… Well we are still not sure what they have to do with freestanding kitchens, but we do know she is a damn good kitchen designer!
Sabrina Miles
Official Title: Managing Director
Unofficial Title: Sista-Boss
Quote: “Glorify the hour.”
Sabrina runs Milestone Factory. She has a Bachelor of Engineering in Industrial Engineering and understands all things entrepreneurial. She is very energetic; her hard-working and progressive character is central to the running of Milestone Kitchens. She is responsible for the day-today running of the factory, our production, our staff and everything else involved in bringing a clients vision to life! She loves that Milestone Kitchens brings skills to a community where it would otherwise be very diffult to acquire skills. Sabrina is constantly learning from her mom (and the Founder of Milestone Kitchens), Silvia.
– Caroline, Cape Town
Samantha Van Den Berg
Official Title: Multimedia Designer
What’s she’s doing outside of working hours: Watching series, gaming or doing step/rebounding with Silvia.
Favourite MK Unit: African Allure Coffee Dresser.
Sam has a BA degree in Visual Multimedia. Sam is a huge part of what happens behind the scenes at Milestone Kitchens. Her main job is to create 2D and 3D kitchen designs and quotes for potential clients, but because we are a small company she does lots of other stuff too! Sometimes she is on the factory floor quality checking, sometimes she is designing magazine or social media ads, sometimes she is doing fancy computer stuff in the “back end“ of our website (wherever that is…?), sometimes she’s loading a truck, figuring out what happened to Bryan’s tape measure or working on Our BRAND NEW kitchen planner.
Sam is steadfast, hard-working and determined. Milestone Kitchens has become waaaay more “21st century” since Sam joined. She has been with us for 4 years and is now an integral part of the team.
– Eugene & Nealan, Carletonville
Phindile Mkize
Official Title: MK Showroom Manager
What she does when she’s not helping our clients design and order their dream kitchen: Trying out new recipes in her Milestone Kitchen kitchen.
Phindile is our Showroom Manager. She runs the showroom in Parkhurst, Johannesburg. She is in charge of all things showroom-y: stock lists, sales reports, deliveries, quotation requests, enquiries, the showroom layout, managing the other showroom staff and more. Her favourite part of her job is liaising with clients in-store about colours, tops options, handles and other design details for their Milestone kitchen.
Phindile is stylish and beautiful and super efficient. She has such a dry sense of humour we sometimes have no idea if she’s joking or not! We often wish she wasn’t based in a different city, not only because of the aforementioned sense of humour but also because she is effective and hard working. Phindile has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Business Administration, and has her eyes on a course in digital marketing. Milestone Kitchens hopes to support her in this journey.
In conclusion, whether to meet the wonderful Phindile or to see our gorgeous units, you SHOULD visit 52 6th street, Randburg, Gauteng.
– Min, Port Elizabeth
Painting Team
The best place in the factory = without a doubt the painting room.
It’s not merely where the painting team applies their craft to Milestone Kitchens units; it’s a space where camaraderie thrives. This team spends time on weekends together, commutes as a group, and supports one another in all aspects of life. They’re besties! And consequently, there is always laughter and good vibes coming from this area of the factory.
- Goodness and Nompumelelo started painting with Silvia in 2001 and have been with us ever since.
- Dumi is also one of our qulaity inspectors at the factory – she is integral to the running of the paint department.
- In this team we also have the wonderful and kind but strict Zintombi who keeps all the factory staff in line, and the just-get-on-with Hlengiwe, who is a member of the Milestone Day Care board.
- Zintombi and Hlengiwe both have children attending Milestone Day Care.
It’s not nepotism, its just a small town!
– Hein, Alberton
Sanding Team
The sanding team AKA Malusi and Ronald AKA Mr helpfuls AKA knows everybody’s business 😂… This team is always ready to help out! Because sanding of our units only really starts in the second week of production they usually spend the first week maintaining the factory, the day care, helping with collections, general tidying and fixing.
You’ve heard a lot about our head Sander, Malusi, this year because of his fabulous pink kitchen presented to him for 20 years of service (if you haven’t seen it we HIGHLY recommend you head to our social media) so I won’t go into him. Ronald on the other hand has been less spoken about. Ronald has 2 grandkids at Milestone Day Care, he loves dogs (he has a gorgeous ridgeback x at home), he is quiet and kind and loved by all in the factory. Ronald has a side hustle fixing up shoes and bags – please get in touch if you need something fixed!
We do also have a new sander on probation at the moment who was not yet with us for this photo, you’ll meet him one day 😊.
– Elizra, Alberton
Carpenters
Team: Sanele (Swedish Style head carpenter), Buyi,
Joe (Raw Range head carpenter)
“We want to thank you for the kitchen units we received – the excellent quality of work all these people did with each cupboard. It was very special for us to know who are part of the process of manufacturing and the special note with all the names and their special jobs written, made your business and our cupboards unique.
Our kitchen is such a pleasure! We enjoy each unit in its own way, but the kitchen island is the best. It provides a lot of extra work space. We also enjoy the drawers running smoothly comparing to our old cupboards!”
– Theuns, Free State