Bespoke carpentry
Built-in bookcases, alcove cupboards, window seats, media walls and one-off furniture — designed and made for the specific space.
Carpentry
Joinery for the rest of the house
Kitchens are most of the work, but not all of it. Thirty-five years of site carpentry means wardrobes, alcoves, windows, staircases and doors are all familiar ground.
Carpentry
One carpenter, most of the trades in one van
Before Ollie's Handmade Kitchens existed, Ollie spent the best part of two decades doing site carpentry for householders across West Sussex and London. Second fix, staircases, doors, skirting and architrave, sash windows, roofs, decking, fitted furniture — the ordinary and extraordinary work that keeps British houses standing.
That work still happens, and it is often the reason clients come back. Someone who had a kitchen fitted two years ago rings about wardrobes in the principal bedroom, or a sash window that has stopped moving, or a set of alcove cupboards either side of a chimney breast.
The advantage is straightforward: one person, one standard, one number to call, and joinery that matches across the whole house rather than being obviously made by three different people.
Detail
What we take on
Fitted wardrobes
Wall to wall, floor to ceiling, with interiors laid out around what you actually own rather than a standard rail-and-shelf arrangement.
Sash windows
New bespoke sashes and casements, plus overhaul of existing ones — cords, weights, beads, draught-proofing and rot repair.
Second fix carpentry
Doors hung, linings fitted, skirting and architrave run, staircases repaired, and profiles matched to the originals.
Kitchen alterations
Replacement doors on sound carcasses, an island added to an existing kitchen, or a run extended into a new opening.
Repairs & restoration
Rotten sills, dropped doors, sagging shelves, split treads. Repairing is usually cheaper and almost always better than replacing.
- 01
A visit first
Even for a small job. Photographs never show a floor falling 25mm across a room or a wall that bows in the middle, and both change the price.
- 02
Written and itemised
You get a written quote listing what is included, what is excluded and roughly how long it will take. No day-rate open-endedness.
- 03
Made, not bought
Alcove units and wardrobes are made from board and timber for your dimensions, not assembled from modular carcasses and scribed in.
- 04
Painted to match
New joinery is finished to match the existing woodwork in the room, so it looks original rather than added.
Straight answers
Questions about carpentry services
Yes, though scheduling depends on where the kitchen work sits in the diary. Small joinery jobs are usually fitted around larger projects, so there may be a wait — but they do get done properly rather than rushed.
Almost always. A template is taken from a length of the original, a matching cutter profile is used, and the new work is run to match. In a period property this is the difference between joinery that disappears and joinery that announces itself.
Ollie does the carpentry and joinery himself and brings in trades he works with regularly for everything else — electrics, plumbing, plastering, tiling. Structural work goes to a builder with the appropriate certification, coordinated around the joinery programme.
Regularly. On larger renovations Ollie often comes in as the joiner on a project run by somebody else, working to drawings and a programme. Equally, if you would rather he handled the whole thing, that works too.
Next step
Let's talk about your kitchen
Book a free, no-obligation design visit. Ollie measures up, talks through what you want and follows up with a drawing and a fixed written quote — usually within a week.