Carpenter in Nieuwegein for custom work and fitting

Carpentry usually starts at the point where the standard solution does not fit. A wardrobe that looks fine in the shop but comes up a hand’s width short in your bedroom. An alcove beside the chimney breast that no standard size drops into. An internal door that has been sticking since the summer and that you shove shut with your shoulder. Below is what I do in custom work and fitting, what the price hangs on, and which choices you can make yourself before I come and measure up.

Having a wardrobe built to measure

A standard wardrobe is designed for a standard room, and in existing housing that room does not really exist. Walls are not square, floors are not level and the height to the ceiling differs from room to room. You see the result with almost every ready-made wardrobe: a strip above it where the dust collects, a gap along the wall that gets covered with a batten, and a corner that stays empty because nothing fits in it.

Built to measure turns that around. I measure the space as it actually is, out-of-square included, and the wardrobe follows those measurements. That means up to the ceiling, into the corner and along the skirting, with filler pieces taking up the difference instead of you living with it.

What a fitted wardrobe is made up of

It helps to see a wardrobe as three parts, because each one decides on its own what you pay.

The carcass is the box: bottom, sides, top and the layout inside. Here you choose between shelves, drawers, pull-out units and hanging rails. Drawers are the most expensive part each, and they are also the part you get the most out of, so this is a good place to choose deliberately rather than going for the maximum by default.

The fronts are what you see. Hinged doors are simpler and do need clearance in front of them. Sliding doors do not take up that space, but they cost you part of the depth of the wardrobe and need a rail set dead straight, because a sliding door that does not run true is something you notice every day.

The hardware is what you do not see and what goes first on cheap wardrobes. Hinges, drawer runners, dampers and rails differ a lot in price and even more in how long they last. If there is one place where I say do not economise, it is here.

What a fitted wardrobe costs

There is no figure on this site, and that is a deliberate choice. What does belong here is that you understand what the price hangs on, because then you can steer it. With custom work that is mainly the length and the height, the number of doors, the ratio of drawers to shelves, the finish of the fronts and the state of the wall it goes against. The honest summary: built to measure costs more than a wardrobe out of a box, and it gives you storage you would otherwise never use. Whether that is worth it depends on how much space you are throwing away now.

An example of what that looks like is the walk-in wardrobe with sliding doors I built along a hallway, where the washing machine is tucked away under the worktop.

A walk-in wardrobe or dressing room

The walk-in wardrobe is the one with the most choices: the depth of the walkway, hanging or folding, open or behind doors, lighting fixed to the unit or to the ceiling, and the question of whether you give up an existing room or take a piece of the landing. That is too much to rush through here, so there is a separate page about a walk-in wardrobe built to measure, with the layout and the pitfalls in it.

Custom furniture

Alongside built-in work I make loose furniture. That is the work people usually look for a furniture maker in Nieuwegein for: a table, a top, a bench, a cabinet in a spot no size exists for.

With a loose piece the sizing is freer, but the finish counts for more. You look at a fitted wardrobe head on, while a table you walk around and sit at with your hands on the edge. So the build is different: solid wood moves with the season and you have to allow for that in the construction, otherwise a top cracks or warps.

Two things I have made give an idea of the range: an oval dining table on a base of vertical slats, where the shape is the work, and a narrow outdoor table in charred wood, where it is the treatment of the wood that makes the piece. If you want something along those lines, send a photo of what you like and the size of the spot. Those two are usually enough for me to say whether it can be done and what makes it tricky.

Fitting and assembly work

Fitting is the other half of this trade, and it goes wrong more often than custom work does. Not because it is harder, but because it gets underestimated.

Installing a kitchen is the clearest example. Levelling the units is the easy part, the work is in how flat the floor is, the connections that have to run behind the units and the worktop that only fits once everything under it sits level. A millimetre out on the left comes back on the right as a gap under the worktop.

With anything you hang, the substrate decides, and that is exactly what you cannot see. Sand-lime block, aerated concrete, plasterboard on a metal frame and old brickwork each need a different fixing. A heavy cabinet on a plasterboard wall hangs off the structure behind it or off a spreader board, not off a plug that only grips the board. So I drill a test hole first if I am unsure what is behind it, and that costs a minute instead of a repair.

Beyond that I step in for the work you cannot get right yourself: flat-pack furniture that no longer sits square, shelves that have to be level, fences and decking in the garden, and the loose finishing after a renovation. If that runs up into a whole list of small jobs, I would rather pick it up in one go under handyman work and maintenance than spread over separate visits.

Doors and frames

A door that sticks is almost never a door problem. Wood moves with the humidity, so a door that runs fine in winter can jam in August. Sometimes it is the door, often it is the frame that has moved or a hinge that has dropped. So I look first at where it catches before anything gets planed off, because planing cannot be undone and a dropped hinge you simply adjust.

Hanging internal doors I do complete: setting the door, letting in the hinges, fitting the lock and strike plate and mounting the hardware. With new frames, setting them is the real work. A frame that stands level and plumb keeps running well for years, a frame set crooked will bind every season. What that looks like in a house you can see at the frames I fitted in the living room, bedroom and bathroom, including the plastering that had to close up around them afterwards.

That last bit is straight away the honest warning about frame work: replacing a frame rarely stops at the frame. There is almost always repair work to the plaster, the window sill or the architraves. If it runs on further because the whole room is being done anyway, I plan it as one job under renovation and remodelling, so the order is right and nothing gets done twice.

What a carpenter costs per hour

The answer to this question is less useful than it looks. An hourly rate only tells you something if you also know how many hours someone needs, and that is exactly what varies enormously. With custom work the material comes on top of that, and on a wardrobe with veneered fronts and good hardware that is a hefty part of the bill.

So for custom work I do not charge by the hour but by the job. I come and look, measure up, and put in the quote what I build, what I supply and where the uncertainties are. That way you know beforehand where you stand, and I do not have to account for hours that say nothing about the result. For loose fitting work and small repairs a job price per visit makes more sense, and we agree that beforehand.

How it goes

Send me a message with what you have in mind, a photo of the spot and the rough measurements. I am on the job myself, so a reply can take a few hours. After that I come and measure up, because with custom work that is no formality: I measure every corner separately, because a room that looks square almost never is.

After that visit you get a price for the job with the choices named in it, so you can shift things before anything gets cut. I work out of Nieuwegein and come to the surrounding towns as well, including Utrecht. I do the work myself, so one number is enough, from measuring up to the moment the doors run true.