All five boroughs
Carpentry and custom millwork
Built ins, cabinetry and trim made for the room you have, rather than ordered for the room you wish you had.
New York apartments are full of awkward spaces: chimney breasts, boxed risers, deep window reveals, alcoves that are almost but not quite a standard width. Those are the places where a made piece earns its cost, because nothing you can order will fit them.
What we make
Built in storage. Wardrobes, alcove units, window seats, storage walls. Made to the actual opening, scribed to the actual wall, and finished to match the trim already in the room.
Cabinetry. Kitchen and bathroom cabinetry where stock will not fit the run, and where a filler panel would be visible from the first place anybody looks.
Trim and mouldings. Matching a profile that is no longer made, replacing sections that have been damaged, and reinstating what a previous renovation removed. Old profiles are usually deeper and more complex than the modern equivalent, and swapping to a modern one on a single wall is obvious from across the room.
Doors and reveals. Hanging into openings that have moved out of square over a century, which is most of them.
Wondering whether a built-in is cheaper than the joinery you were quoted?
Call to talk through a built-inWhy it is scribed rather than fitted
A straight cabinet against a bowed wall leaves a gap that tapers, and a tapering gap reads as a mistake even to somebody who cannot say why. Scribing means cutting the piece to follow the wall so the line stays parallel. It is slower, it is most of the skill, and it is the difference between joinery and flat pack.
What drives the cost
The material, the finish, and how much of the piece is straight. A run of shelving in a square opening is quick. A wardrobe into a sloping alcove with a riser in the corner is not.
Wondering whether a built-in is cheaper than the joinery you were quoted?
Call to talk through a built-inQuestions people ask
Is a built in cheaper than buying furniture?
Rarely cheaper, often better value in a small apartment, because it uses space that furniture cannot reach and it does not leave the dead gaps that free standing pieces leave at the edges.
Can you match the trim in the rest of the apartment?
Usually, by taking a profile from an existing length and having a matching cutter made. Where a match is genuinely not possible we will say so rather than fitting something close and hoping.
Talk it through
Tell us the apartment and the building, and we will tell you what the work involves.
(929) 695-3563