Joiner in Wallasey and New Brighton

The Victorian and Edwardian houses along the Egremont and New Brighton front took the full weather off the Mersey mouth for a hundred and forty years, and anything timber on a west or north elevation has had a hard life. Window boards, external door frames and the bottom rails of front doors are where it shows first, because salt-laden air keeps paint damp for longer and the damp gets in behind it.

Inside, those houses have the joinery worth keeping: moulded architrave, deep skirting, panelled doors and staircases with turned spindles and a proper newel. Most of what we do in them is repair and match rather than replace. Where a profile is not made any more it gets run to match the original rather than swapped for the nearest thing in a merchant's catalogue.

Behind the front, Liscard and Seacombe are tighter two-up two-down and bay-fronted terraces, many of them converted to flats at some point and converted back since. That history is the thing to know about before quoting: openings have been moved, staircases have had a partition put through them, and there is often a layer of hardboard over an original floor.

Stair work is common here. A Victorian staircase in a terrace that has been a two-flat conversion has usually had the balustrade taken out and a stud wall put down the side of it, and putting the balustrade back is a job where the spindle spacing has to meet the current regulations even though the stair itself is original.

Wallasey Village and the roads behind it are largely between-the-wars semis with bays, picture rails and a decent set of alcoves. The work here looks much more like Moreton: fitted wardrobes in the alcoves, kitchens, doors through the house, and flooring.

Access varies more than people expect across Wallasey. On the terraced streets around Liscard and Seacombe there is often no off-street parking and the back is reached through an entry, so materials get carried and the job carries a bit more time. We say so in the price rather than discovering it on the first morning.