Having recently completed a large fitted furniture contract for Oxford based McLennan architects, we are delighted that our reputation is spreading and we are finding that, in general, architects are beginning to show a greater understanding of how bespoke cabinet making differs from the traditional craft of joinery.

Joinery to the construction industry means doors, staircases and window frames. Carpentry includes the roof trusses and constructural woodwork, usually carried out on site. The Joinery contractor makes prefabricated structures that are delivered to site and joined to the building, often at the ‘first fix’ stage, such as windows, staircases and door linings. At the second fix, the carpenters will install doors and skirting boards supplied  under the joinery contract. Traditionally, this was the stage at which the carpenters would create storage spaces, such as wardrobes, from joinery components on site.

The cabinetry approach is to measure the spaces after the ‘wet trades’ or plasterers have left, make the fitted furniture off site to pre-agreeded designs in specified materials but to ’site dimensions and then deliver and install before the decorators arrive. This requires prompt site surveys, rapid factory turnarounds and skilled, fast installation to fit into the demanding schedules of the construction industry.

The end result is a better looking and more functional product for an increasingly demanding consumer, who no longer wants a piece of furniture that looks like something the builder made up as he went along, but who is not prepared to live out of the removal company’s cardboard boxes while they shop around for fitted bedroom furniture and wait the usual 6 to 8 weeks for delivery.

It has been a long time coming but architects are beginning to appreciate that bespoke fitted furniture, whilst still part of the joinery package, requires a different specifying and installation process than was the case when the new home owner would have been delighted if the new house had a 6ft wide recess in the master bedroom covered by a studwork and plasterboard fascia with a couple of pass doors.