Carpentry & Built-Ins

There's no current independent figure for a landed home that we can point you to, so here's what sets the price. Where a quote gives a price per foot run, that's the length of wall a unit covers, and the same foot of wall can hold very different cabinets. A wardrobe that runs up to a higher ceiling needs taller panels or an extra row of top cabinets. Drawers cost more than shelves because each one is a box on its own pair of runners, and spray-painted doors cost more than laminate because each is sanded, primed and sprayed in coats that need time to dry. An uneven wall means trimming panels to its shape on site. Taking out old carpentry, a Licensed Electrical Worker for lights or sockets, and patching the wall or floor afterwards can sit outside the cabinet price. What a per-foot price leaves out shows how to read those lines in a quote, and sliding or hinged wardrobe doors helps you choose between the two door types. For your own room, we come for a free site assessment and give you a fixed-price quote within 3 to 5 working days, never from a photo.

We can't point you to an independent published price for a walk-in wardrobe, so here's what sets it. The cost of the carpentry follows the cabinets around the walls, not the room's floor area. Open shelves and hanging rails need no doors or hinges, drawers each need a box and a pair of runners, glass doors need a frame, and an island in the middle is a whole extra unit. Lights inside the cabinets add electrical work, which should be carried out or supervised by a Licensed Electrical Worker. If the walk-in is made by closing off part of a bedroom, the new partition wall and its door are building work priced on top of the carpentry. To price yours, we look at the room on a free site assessment and give you a fixed-price quote within 3 to 5 working days, never from a photo.

We can't give you a number of weeks until the rooms and the units are settled, and here's why. When the units are made off site, they're made to measurements taken in the room, and those can't be final until the floor, the walls and the socket positions are finished, or the cabinets get made for a room that then changes. Kitchen cabinets also wait for the appliance models, because each opening is cut to fit them, which is why choosing kitchen appliances before the cabinets matters. Spray-painted doors take longer to make than laminate ones, because each coat needs time to dry. Once the drawings are signed off, ask for the dates each room will be out of use.

BCA's guide to works that don't need approval and the Building Control Regulations' list of insignificant building works don't name built-in cabinets or wardrobes either way. What they do cover is the building work that can come with carpentry. BCA says owners may be required to submit building or structural plans for building works, that some minor building works are exempt, and that owners should engage a Qualified Person, a registered architect or professional engineer, to advise on the clearances needed from BCA and other authorities such as URA. The regulations' list of insignificant building works, which need no plan submission to BCA, includes putting up a partition wall up to 10 m high that carries nothing but its own weight, as long as any non-laminated glass in it sits no higher than 2.4 m above the floor in a landed house. So a partition to close off a walk-in wardrobe can be on that list, though BCA says owners must still get any approvals other authorities require. Where your job also takes out a wall, builds a partition or turns an attic into a room, we arrange the engineer or Qualified Person and the submissions it needs. BCA's advice is to consult your QP when in doubt about the clearances, and we arrange that QP too. Adding or moving a socket, switch or light point for a cabinet should be carried out or supervised by a Licensed Electrical Worker.

No board name settles it on its own. What matters more is where water can reach the cabinet and how its edges are sealed. In a landed house that means under the kitchen sink, in the yard or wet kitchen, under a bathroom vanity, and in a ground-floor cabinet against an outside wall. The weak point is a cut edge or a seam. If water sits there, it can get in and swell the board underneath while the face still looks fine. Formica, a laminate maker, warns against flooding its laminate near seams because water can get in and swell the board underneath. Plywood and MDF are families of boards rather than one product each, so for those spots ask which grade is behind each front and how the sink cut-out is sealed. If you're also choosing boards for what they give off indoors, what to ask for in low-emission carpentry covers the test reports.

It is, where a room has a height or a shape a loose piece can't use. Under a high ceiling, a loose wardrobe stops short and leaves empty space and a dust shelf on top, where a built-in can carry a row of top cabinets. On a long wall, loose pieces in standard widths can leave gaps at the ends, where a built-in runs wall to wall. The triangle under the stairs and the low side of an attic slope fit no standard unit, and four ideas for under-stair storage and built-ins or freestanding furniture under an attic slope show what each space can hold. Loose furniture is still easier to move when a room changes use, and it comes with you if you move house. The carpentry buying guide goes further into where a built-in is worth it and how to plan one.

Look at the edge and the grain. A laminate front is a printed sheet bonded to the board, with a matching strip along each edge. Veneer is a thin slice of real wood, so the grain is real and differs from door to door, and its edges need a strip or a timber lip too. A sprayed front is painted in coats, so the colour wraps round the edge with no strip, and it can follow grooves and curves. Care differs by product. Formica's care guide for its laminates says to clean them with a damp, non-abrasive cotton cloth and a mild detergent, then rinse and dry.

Either can happen. Watch any cabinet on the ground floor, against an outside wall, or next to a planter, the yard or a wet kitchen, because that's where damp can reach the back of a cabinet and where termites can come in from the ground. If a wall has had a leak or termites, get the leak fixed or the termites treated before cabinets cover it, because once they're fitted you can't see the wall behind them. On a wall like that, keep a panel you can take off to look behind the cabinet.

Yes, if you can do without the room while our specialist's carpenters are fitting it. When the units are made off site, the loudest cutting happens away from your house. Fitting still means drilling into walls, trimming panels to fit and some dust in that room. Panels for upstairs rooms are carried up the stairs, so the floor and staircase along that route need covering. A kitchen is the hardest room to lose, so plan meals around the days its cabinets and worktop go in.