Fitted Wardrobes
Built to the room's real dimensions, including the chimney breast, the sloping ceiling and the wall that is 14mm out over two metres.
Read more about Fitted WardrobesBespoke Joinery Torquay
Designed, Made And Fitted From Our Own Workshop
Handmade fitted wardrobes, kitchens, staircases, windows and commercial joinery for homes and businesses across Torquay, Torbay and South Devon.
Everything we install was drawn, machined and assembled by us before it came anywhere near your house. That matters more in Torquay than it does in most towns. The housing stock here runs from Victorian villas built for naval officers to Chelston's late garden-suburb terraces, and almost none of it is square, level or standard. Add spring humidity in the eighties and salt air off the bay, and you have a set of conditions that catalogue joinery was never designed for. So we measure what is actually there, condition the timber before we cut it, and come back once the first winter has been and gone.
Ask For A Measured Quote
Tell us roughly what you have in mind and we will arrange a time to come and measure. A photo of the space on your phone is usually enough to start with.
-
Our own workshop
Nothing bought in and badged
-
Free measured visit
We come and take the dimensions
-
Fixed written quote
Timber and ironmongery named
-
Fitted by the makers
The same people, start to finish
- Custom Joinery Projects
- 300+ Custom Joinery Projects
- Fitted Wardrobes Built
- 100+ Fitted Wardrobes Built
- Kitchens & Fitted Furniture
- 200+ Kitchens & Fitted Furniture
- Measured Design Visit
- Free Measured Design Visit
Services
What We Make Most Of
Three quarters of what leaves the workshop is one of these. The rest is below, and if what you want is not listed it is still worth asking - most of the interesting jobs start as a photograph and a question.
Bespoke Kitchens
Every cabinet made to size rather than chosen from a grid of 300, 400 and 500mm modules.
Read more about Bespoke Kitchens
Timber Windows & Doors
Sash and casement windows made to the original profiles, for the sixteen Torquay conservation areas where like-for-like matters.
Read more about Timber Windows & DoorsThe Difference
Why Made Joinery Suits Torquay Houses
- Made to the wall you have
- The plaster in a Warberries villa can wander by an inch across a single wall and still be perfectly sound. We scribe to it rather than covering the difference with a filler strip.
- Timber conditioned before it is cut
- BS EN 942 puts joinery for a house heated to 12 to 21 degrees at 9 to 13 per cent moisture content. Boards sit in the workshop until they get there. It is the stage that decides whether a door still shuts properly in February.
- Specified for a coast, not an average
- Torquay takes around 896mm of rain a year and sits in high humidity through spring. Every face gets sealed, including the ones nobody sees, and exposed external work goes into accoya rather than standard softwood.
- Period detail matched, not approximated
- We take profiles off your existing skirting, architrave, handrail or glazing bar and run the same sections. In a conservation area that is the difference between an approval and a refusal.
- Built for how the house is used
- A holiday let in Babbacombe and a family home in Shiphay need different ironmongery and different finishes. Tell us which you have and the specification changes.
- Repairable years later
- Runners and hinges are named on your quote, doors can be repainted, a single damaged front can be remade. Nothing depends on a range still being in production.
Why Us
Five Things Worth Knowing Before You Choose
- One workshop and one team - the people who draw it, make it and fit it are the same people, so nothing gets lost between a designer, a supplier and a subcontracted fitter.
- A drawn elevation with real dimensions before anything is priced as final, so you are approving a design rather than a description.
- Quotes that name the timber species, the finish and the ironmongery, which is the only way to compare us fairly against anyone else you ask.
- Domestic and commercial under one roof, so a hotel or guest house owner can have the bedroom furniture and the bar counter made by the same firm.
- A snagging visit after your first winter of heating, when solid timber has done most of the moving it is ever going to do.
More Services
And The Rest Of What We Do
Staircases and furniture for the house, and commercial work for the venues and shops that keep the bay trading.
Staircases
New flights set out from a measured survey, and sympathetic repairs to original stairs in matching sections.
Read more about Staircases
Alcove Units & Home Offices
Cabinetry built into the recesses either side of a chimney breast, with each alcove measured and made on its own.
Read more about Alcove Units & Home Offices
Bespoke Furniture
Solid timber pieces made to a drawing you have approved, from a single table to a whole boot room.
Read more about Bespoke Furniture
Commercial Joinery & Shopfitting
Bars, banquettes, shopfronts and office fit-outs, built in the workshop and installed to suit a trading calendar.
Read more about Commercial Joinery & ShopfittingOur Process
How A Torquay Joinery Project Runs
Seven stages, in this order. The one that gets skipped elsewhere is the fourth, and it is the reason a door that shut perfectly in June catches on the frame by February.
-
Visit and measured survey
We come to the house or the unit, measure the opening properly, and check what we are fixing into. Lath and plaster, solid stone, a stud wall someone put up in 1985 - it changes the fixings and sometimes the design. We take the diagonals too, because almost nothing in a Victorian villa is square.
-
Drawings you sign off
You get a drawn elevation and a plan, with real dimensions on them, before anything is priced as final. Door swings, drawer positions, where the sockets end up. It is much cheaper to move a shelf on paper than after it has been cut.
-
Timber selected and priced
We agree the species and the grade, and where it matters we pick the actual boards. Oak with heavy medullary rays looks completely different from quarter-sawn stock. The quote names the timber, the finish and the ironmongery, so you are comparing like with like against anyone else you ask.
-
Conditioning in the workshop
The timber sits in the workshop and settles towards the moisture content it will live at. BS EN 942 puts joinery for a house heated to between 12 and 21 degrees at 9 to 13 per cent. Skip this and the piece will do its moving after it is installed, in your hallway, rather than on our racks.
-
Machining and dry assembly
Cut, moulded and jointed, then dry-assembled on the bench so we find out about any problem while it is still in our building. Carcasses go together, doors are hung, drawers are fitted and adjusted. Nothing is finished until it has been put together at least once.
-
Finishing before delivery
Sprayed, oiled or hand-painted in the workshop, including the backs and the edges you will never see. Sealing five faces and leaving the sixth bare is how a panel takes up moisture unevenly and bows. Finishing off site also means no spray dust through your house.
-
Fitting and a snagging visit
Delivered and installed by the people who made it, scribed to the walls on the day. When it is in, we walk it with you and write down anything that needs adjusting. Then we come back once - usually a few months later, after your Torquay winter heating has been on - to ease anything that has moved.
Reassurance
What We Stand Behind
- Timber moved before it was cut
- Boards come into the workshop and sit there before anything is machined. Cutting a wide oak panel on the day it arrives is how you end up with a door that has cupped by Easter. In a bay where spring humidity runs high, that waiting period is not optional.
- Scribed to your walls, not shimmed to them
- Older Torquay walls are rarely square and almost never plumb. Every fitted piece is scribed to the actual surface on site. If you can see daylight behind a filler strip, the job was measured once and hoped over.
- Ironmongery rated for the job it is doing
- A drawer in a holiday flat gets pulled open forty times a week in August. We fit runners and hinges specified for that, and we tell you which ones we used, so in eight years you can buy the same part rather than replacing a whole unit.
- If it moves, we come back
- Solid timber is a material that responds to the room it lives in, and occasionally something needs easing in its first year. That visit is part of the job, not a callout. Say so and we will book it.
Materials
The Timbers We Work With Most
We will always show you actual boards rather than a swatch card. Variation within a single species is far wider than most people expect, and choosing the stock is part of the job rather than an afterthought.
European Oak
The default for visible structural work and staircases. Hard, stable and it ages well. Quarter-sawn stock shows the medullary ray figure that crown-cut boards do not.
Ash
Pale, tough and springy, with a straighter grain than oak. It takes a stain unusually well, so it is a good choice when a piece has to sit alongside an existing timber.
Walnut
Dark, richly figured and expensive. Usually specified for a single focal piece - a table top, an island, a run of drawer fronts - rather than a whole room.
Tulipwood
The workhorse for hand-painted joinery. Fine, even grain with almost no figure to telegraph through paint, and it stays put once conditioned.
Accoya
Modified softwood for external work. Very low movement and a long above-ground warranty, which is what you want on a sea-facing window in Torquay.
Birch Plywood
For carcasses and contemporary work where the laminated edge is part of the look. Considerably more stable than chipboard and it holds a fixing properly.
The Workshop
Made Here, Not Bought In And Badged
Plenty of firms selling handmade joinery are buying carcasses from a trade supplier and fitting doors to them. That is a perfectly honest business, but it is a different product and it should not cost the same. Ours is machined, assembled and finished in our own workshop, and you are welcome to come and watch it happen.
Feedback
What Customers Say
Rated 5 out of 5
“Our bedroom is in one of the old Warberries villas and the back wall bows by about an inch and a half across four metres. Two national firms measured it, quoted, then went quiet. These came, measured, and said it needed scribing rather than filling. The wardrobes go right into the corner and there is no gap anywhere. My husband keeps running his hand down the join.”
Rated 5 out of 5
“We run a bar on the harbourside and needed the counter and back fittings replaced without losing a summer weekend. They built the lot off site, came in on a Sunday night and had us trading by Tuesday lunchtime. Knowing the whole thing was made before they ever shut our doors is what sold it.”
Rated 5 out of 5
“Sash windows on the front elevation, and we are in a conservation area so it had to be timber and it had to match. They took a profile off the original, made new boxes in accoya, and the planning side went through without a query. From the pavement you genuinely cannot tell which is which.”
Rated 5 out of 5
“Two alcoves either side of the chimney, and they turned out to be 40mm different in width, which explains why the flat-pack ones we tried first never sat right. Made as a pair but to two different sets of measurements. Small thing, but it is the difference between looking fitted and looking bought.”
Rated 5 out of 5
“We let our place out over the season so everything gets hammered. I asked them to over-specify the drawer runners and they did, and told me exactly which ones so I can order spares. Three summers in, nothing has sagged. The last kitchen we had did not last two.”
Budget
What Joinery Costs In Torquay
Guide ranges, VAT included. They are wide because the work is genuinely variable - a two-door wardrobe run and a full dressing room are both fitted wardrobes. Your figure comes from the measured visit and the drawing you approve.
- Fitted Wardrobes
- £2,500 – £12,000
- Bespoke Kitchens
- £12,000 – £45,000
- Staircases
- £4,000 – £18,000
- Timber Windows & Doors
- £1,400 – £9,000
- Bespoke Furniture
- £900 – £8,000
- Alcove Units & Home Offices
- £1,800 – £7,500
- Commercial Joinery & Shopfitting
- £5,000 – £60,000
Questions
Questions We Get Asked Most
- What does bespoke joinery actually mean?
- That the piece is designed and made for your space rather than selected from a range of sizes. In practice it means someone measures your room, draws it, then cuts timber to those dimensions. The useful test is what happens where the joinery meets the wall: made joinery is scribed to the wall's real line, and modular joinery uses a filler panel to absorb the difference.
- Are you more expensive than a fitted furniture company?
- For an equivalent specification, usually not by as much as people expect, and sometimes less. What changes the comparison is that our quotes name the carcass material, the drawer box construction and the ironmongery, so you can see what you are getting. A cheap quote and an expensive quote for what looks like the same wardrobe are almost always describing different products.
- How long does a typical project take?
- Six to twelve weeks from the measured visit to installation for most domestic work, with the bulk of that being the making. Commercial fit-outs are usually faster on site because everything is built beforehand. We give you a date when you approve the drawings rather than a rolling estimate.
- Do you work on listed buildings and in conservation areas?
- Regularly. Torbay has 864 listed buildings and 24 conservation areas, 16 of which are in Torquay, so a good proportion of the town's period property is covered by one or the other. We will match existing profiles and provide drawings for a consent application, but the application itself is between you and Torbay Council, and it is worth speaking to them before ordering anything.
- Can we visit the workshop?
- Yes, and we would rather you did. Seeing a carcass being made and pulling out a dovetailed drawer box tells you more in five minutes than any amount of description. It is also the quickest way to confirm that we make what we sell rather than buying it in.
- Do you take on small jobs?
- Yes. A single alcove, one replacement sash, a window seat, a set of doors that no longer close. Send a photograph and a rough size and we will tell you honestly whether it is worth making or whether you would be better served another way.
Coverage
Where We Work
Most of our work sits inside Torbay, because fitted joinery needs at least two visits and often three. Further out we go as far as the drive stays sensible - Newton Abbot and Totnes are routine, and we have taken work down to the South Hams when the job justified it.
Across Torquay
- Wellswood
- The Warberries
- The Lincombes
- Chelston
- Babbacombe
- St Marychurch
- Cockington
- Shiphay
- Torre
- Ellacombe
- Livermead
- Maidencombe
And across South Devon
- Paignton
- Brixham
- Newton Abbot
- Teignmouth
- Shaldon
- Dawlish
- Totnes
- Kingskerswell
- Marldon
- Galmpton
Or go straight to a service
Come And See It Being Made
The workshop is open to customers by arrangement, and five minutes watching a drawer box go together explains more than any brochure. Call 01803 223288, or send a photograph of the space and we will tell you what we would do with it.