Joiners in Stoke-on-Trent

A lot of joinery sold as made to measure is standard sizes ordered from a supplier and packed out with filler strips on site. It works, it is cheaper, and in a modern square room you would struggle to tell.

In a Victorian terrace you can tell immediately. Nothing is square, alcoves either side of the same chimney breast are different widths, and a run of filler down one edge is the first thing your eye finds every time you walk in.

Made to measure means the carcass is built to the numbers we take off your room, and the end panels, cornice and scribes take up the difference between square and reality. What you see is a clean line into the wall, the ceiling and the skirting, with nothing behind it.

Everything is built off site and brought in as components, so an awkward width costs no more to design than a standard one and the dust stays away from your house. Assembly, scribing and finishing happen in the room itself, because that is the only place the fit can actually be judged.

The terraces across Burslem, Tunstall, Longton and Fenton were built with deep skirtings, moulded architrave, picture rails and turned stair spindles. Where those survive they are worth keeping, and where half of them have gone the job is usually matching rather than replacing.

Staircases in these houses are steep, narrow and often turn on a winder near the top. That rules out a replacement flight in most cases — but new spindles, a new handrail and cladding over tired treads transforms the same staircase for a fraction of the cost and none of the structural argument.

Door openings are the other recurring one. A century of settlement means very few are square, so a door bought to a standard size and hung without easing will bind at the top corner within a season.

On the newer estates at Trentham, Barlaston and Blurton the problem reverses. The fabric is sound and square, but there is no character and very little storage — so the work is adding it. Media walls, alcove units, window seats and understairs storage, usually in plasterboard-and-stud walls that need fixings into the studwork rather than plugs.

The same joiners make our kitchen units, which is why a larder to fit an awkward corner or an end panel scribed to a bowed wall is routine rather than a special request.

And because the electricians are on the same job, a media wall gets its cabling chased in before boarding rather than trailing down the back afterwards.

What does joinery cost?

Timber and finish move the price more than size does. A painted MDF unit and the same unit in oak are very different numbers for identical work.

Everything below includes making, fitting and making good afterwards.