OK, so whilst considering whether to use an established professional bespoke fitted furniture supplier or to save money by employing a carpenter I have cited the benefits of dealing with somebody who can supply a design service and produce technical drawings that make it clear what exactly to expect from the finished product.

The second benefit that I would to look at is the nature of the finished product: Apart from the initial design aspect and a clear understanding of your expectations, the  fitted furniture or cabinet maker will have a factory or workshop in which bench joiners (a different trade to carpentry) will prepare the doors and carcasses to precise sizes, usually within a millimetre,  and finish them ready for delivery to site and installation. The bench joinery is the messy part with wood shavings and dust that has to be extracted mechanically from the atmosphere in order to avoid health hazards. It isn’t just modern materials like mdf that carry risks, the dust from traditional hardwoods can be carcinogenic. By the time that factory made fitted furniture reaches your home it should be clean and sealed from the air.

A carpenter will normally purchase the raw materials, bring them to your house and do all the cutting,  drilling and finishing on-site. This has three effects: (1) the disruption is greater and takes much longer, perhaps a week to make a set of wardrobes as opposed to a day or two to install factory made units. (2) There will be more pollution to the atmosphere in your home, wood dust can take weeks to settle and the varnish or paint used in finishing your new furniture will be emitting solvents and adours for some time. Current legislation bans the use of air-dried finishes in factories and the new catlyst dried lacquers are virtually inert by the time they reach your home. (3) The painted or varnished finishes that can be applied by brush after the furniture is made are far less durable and abrasion resistant than sprayed on factory finishes.

Of course, you may prefer a more hand-made look to your furniture and prefer that it looks like something a carpenter has made, and at Options Fitted Furniture we do, from time to time, use various techniques to produce distressed or brush painted finishes that look hand-made whilst still retaining the hard wearing properties of modern materials.

So there you have it, the advantages of a skilled furniture designer backed up by a drawing office and a clear understanding of what you will get when it is finished  and the reduced disruption in your home coupled with the nature of the finished product are two powerful arguments for calling in the professionals.

However there is more to come and in future posts I will be looking at seeing before you buy and the project management aspects of having a new fitted bedroom, home study or living room furniture installed.