Joiner in West Kirby

The Victorian and Edwardian houses around West Kirby and up onto Caldy have ceiling heights that change how fitted joinery has to be made. A floor-to-ceiling wardrobe in a room with a three-metre ceiling is not a standard carcass with a bit on top: the proportions have to be designed or it looks like a cupboard with an afterthought above it, and the doors get heavy enough that the hinges and the fixings matter.

Those heights also mean the skirting is deep, the architrave is wide and the picture rails are usually still there. Matching them is normal work here. So is working out which parts of a room are original and which were added in a 1990s refurbishment, because the two rarely line up and the fix is to pick one and make the room consistent.

West Kirby faces the Dee and the prevailing weather comes straight off it. On the seaward elevations the external joinery has a harder time than almost anywhere else on the peninsula, and anything with an open joint will have taken water. We check end grain and the bottoms of frames first, because that is where it starts.

Internally it shows up as doors that bind in winter and free off in summer, which is usually movement rather than a failed door. It is an adjustment, not a replacement, and we will say so.

The one thing that makes West Kirby jobs run well is access. Driveways, side gates and room to put a van means materials can be unloaded and set out properly, and a wardrobe can be built up outside the bedroom rather than in it. On larger kitchens and runs of flooring that difference shows in both the time and the price.

Caldy and the roads up the hill are the exception, with narrow lanes and some long walks from where a van can actually stand. It is worth mentioning the access when you enquire so the price is right first time.