Nothing in an old house is square.
Not the walls, not the floors, not the ceilings. Fitted work either admits that at the setting-out stage, or it shows a gap for the rest of its life.
ONE NUMBER, THREE JOBS
A wall out of plumb punishes tall things.
Put a straight panel against a leaning wall and it touches where the wall is nearest — at the floor. The gap opens upwards, and how big it gets depends entirely on how tall the panel is. That is the whole of it, and it is why a wardrobe end is a different job from a skirting board.
A section through the wall. Heights are to scale; the lean is drawn six times over so you can see it. The numbers are the real ones.
At 25mm out, the wardrobe panel needs scribing, the kitchen panel wants it, and the skirting can be caulked and forgotten.
WHAT A JOINER DOES ABOUT IT
Scribing: cutting the timber to the wall, not the wall to the timber.
It takes about twenty minutes a panel and it is the single thing that separates fitted joinery from furniture pushed up against a wall. Four steps, and no step can be skipped.
Offer it up
The panel goes against the wall, plumb and square to the room, touching at one point. Everything after this is measured from where it actually sits.
Set the compasses
Open them to the widest part of the gap — not an average, not a guess. Lock them there and they do not move again until the cut is made.
Run it down the wall
One point follows the plaster, the other draws on the timber. What comes out is a pencil line that is an exact copy of the wall, bumps included.
Cut to the line
Off the line with a jigsaw, back-cut a few degrees so only the face edge touches, then ease it in. The joint closes along its whole length.
WHERE IT SHOWS
The jobs where an out-of-square room decides the price.
Every job is measured and quoted, because nothing in an old house comes in a standard size. These are the ones where the measuring is most of the work.
WARDROBES
Alcove wardrobes and fitted furniture
An alcove is never the same width at the picture rail as it is at the skirting, and both sides lean their own way. A flat-pack wardrobe does not know that. A made one is cut to the room it is going in, and the end panels are scribed before anything is fixed.
KITCHENS
Kitchens, supplied and fitted
End panels cut to the plaster, plinths scribed to the floor, and cornice mitred so the joins fall where nobody looks. A kitchen is a straight line of boxes dropped into a room that has none, and the fitting is what hides the difference.
FLOORS
Flooring
Solid wood moves with the seasons and wants acclimatising in the house before a board goes down. The expansion gap round the perimeter is not optional, and the scribe at the hearth and the door linings is where a floor is judged.
STAIRS
Stairs and balustrades
The one piece of joinery that has to be right to the millimetre, on a floor-to-floor height that is rarely what the drawing says. New flights, replacement balustrades, or new spindles and handrail on a flight that is sound underneath.
STRUCTURE
Loft conversions and timber frame
A carpentry job before it is anything else. Floors, walls, roof, and the stairs that get you up there — set out square even when what it is sitting on is not.
FIRST & SECOND FIX
First fix, then second fix
First fix is the timber that disappears behind the finish and holds it up. Second fix is what you see and touch every day, so it is the part that gets judged.
GET A QUOTE
Send us the room, not just the job.
Ring 07123 456789 or send the form. A photograph and a couple of measurements is plenty to start with — the widths at the top and the bottom of an alcove tell us more than a careful description does.
Across Halifax and the Calder Valley. Everything is measured on site and quoted from the measurements, so nothing is priced off a list.
