Carpentry and Joinery
in Dubai

Door type. Hinged doors give full access to the interior and need clearance to swing, which rules them out in narrow bedrooms. Sliding doors need no clearance and suit tight rooms, at the cost of only ever seeing half the wardrobe at once, and they depend entirely on the quality of the track and rollers. Open walk-in systems with no doors at all are the cheapest per metre and the least forgiving of untidiness. Fabric or glass-fronted options sit in between.

Interior layout. This is where the value is. Long hang for dresses and coats, double hang for shirts and folded trousers, drawer banks at a usable height, shoe shelving angled or flat, pull-out trouser racks, tie and belt organisers, a dedicated section for luggage and out-of-season storage, internal LED lighting on a door sensor. We plan the interior around what you own, not around a standard drawing.

Walk-in wardrobes and walk-in closets. Where a spare room, a large en-suite or a generous bedroom allows it, converting to a walk-in gives a far better result than a bigger row of doors. The layout becomes a U or L of open hanging and drawer runs, often with an island of drawers, mirrors positioned for daylight, and a seating point. The room's electrical layout usually needs adjusting for lighting and sockets, which we coordinate.

Fixing. Dubai walls vary. Solid concrete, blockwork and lightweight partition all need different fixings, and a heavy wardrobe fixed into plasterboard with the wrong anchor will eventually pull out. Walls are also rarely square, so carcasses are scribed and filler panels are cut to the actual wall line rather than left with a gap and a bead of silicone. Ceilings likewise: a wardrobe that runs to the ceiling needs the ceiling line followed, and if there is a bulkhead or an AC duct in the way, it is designed around rather than butted into.

Door and front replacement. If the carcasses are sound and the layout works, replacing the doors, drawer fronts, handles and hinges transforms the kitchen for a fraction of the cost and disruption of a replacement. This is a genuinely underused option in Dubai apartments where the developer-fitted kitchen is structurally fine and visually dated.

Partial replacement and alteration. Replacing failed base units while keeping the wall units, adding a tall unit or a pantry, converting a cupboard to pull-out drawers, cutting a carcass to fit a new appliance, extending a run into dead space, changing a worktop and re-scribing the cabinetry to it, or reworking a peninsula.

Full replacement. New carcasses, new fronts, new worktop, coordinated with plumbing for the sink and any water-fed appliance, and with electrical for hob, oven, extractor, lighting and sockets. See kitchen renovation for the wider project.

Materials in a kitchen. The wet zones (sink base, dishwasher run, anywhere that gets splashed) are where standard board fails first. We use moisture-resistant board in those positions and pay attention to the edging, because water almost always gets in at an unsealed edge or a badly finished cut-out rather than through the face.

Worktops. Quartz, granite and solid surface are templated after the cabinetry is set and fabricated off site. That sequencing is fixed and it is why a kitchen has a gap in the middle of it: cabinets in, template, fabricate, fit. Sink and hob cut-outs, drainer grooves and upstands are decided at template stage.

Why doors misbehave here. An air-conditioned interior is dry. An unconditioned store room, maid's room, balcony access or stairwell is hot and, in summer, humid. Timber and timber-based doors move between those conditions, which is why a door can bind in August and rattle in January. The fix is usually adjustment and easing at the right points rather than replacement, and it holds much better when the door is sealed on all six faces including the top and bottom edges, which is exactly where most doors are left bare.

What we do with doors. Adjustment and re-hanging, hinge replacement and repositioning, easing and sealing, latch and strike plate alignment, lock and handle replacement, closing and re-fixing frames that have loosened, replacing damaged leaves, and cutting doors down where new flooring has raised the floor. Also full replacement of internal doors, including matched sets, with veneer, laminate or painted finishes.

Where a building requires a rated door set for a particular opening, the replacement has to match that certified specification as a complete assembly (leaf, frame, seals and ironmongery) rather than being assembled from parts. We will tell you when that is the situation you are in rather than fitting the wrong thing.

Other interior joinery. Skirting and architrave, wall panelling and fluted or slatted feature walls, window seats and built-in benches, stair joinery and handrails, boxing-in for pipework and services, access hatches, and made-to-fit shelving into alcoves.

Related: door repair, wardrobe repair, cabinet repair.

Alcove and dead-space storage. The recess beside a chimney breast or column, the space under a staircase, the depth above a doorway, the awkward corner in a bedroom. Made-to-fit joinery turns those into usable storage in a way no bought unit can.

Open shelving. Floating shelves need concealed brackets sized for the load and fixed into something that will hold them. Long spans bow if the material and thickness are not matched to what will sit on them. We fix into the actual wall construction, which in Dubai is often solid concrete requiring proper drilling and anchors. See shelving installation.

Laundry and utility rooms. Housing for a washer and dryer with the correct clearances and ventilation, a worktop over, sorting storage, hanging space, and a sink surround if there is one. These rooms are usually unconditioned, so material choice matters more here than anywhere else in the apartment.

Store rooms and maid's rooms. Shelving systems, hanging rails, and racking that makes a small unconditioned room actually usable. Ventilation and heat are the constraints; nothing that will warp belongs in a room that reaches 40 degrees C.

Garage and back-of-house. Heavy-duty racking, tool walls and storage that will take real weight.

What has to be resolved:

• Where the TV sits, and at what height for the actual seating position.
• Where the power, aerial, network and HDMI runs go, so that nothing is visible.
• Where the AV equipment lives and how it gets rid of its heat, because a closed cabinet holding a receiver and a console will cook itself.
• Where a soundbar or speakers sit acoustically.
• Whether an electric fireplace insert is part of the design, which brings its own clearance and power requirements.

We build the joinery, route and box the cabling, coordinate the back boxes and socket positions with our electricians, and mount the screen. If you want the screen mounted and nothing else, that is also a job we do: see TV mounting, and media wall.

Finishes range from painted MDF panelling through wood veneer and fluted slat panels to stone-effect porcelain. Lighting (indirect LED behind the panel, shelf lighting, or a wash down the face) is designed in rather than added afterwards.

Decking. Composite (WPC) and hardwood boards, both laid on a ventilated sub-frame set clear of standing water and to falls, so wash-down water leaves rather than sitting underneath.

Pergolas and shade structures. We build aluminium and timber pergolas, and the trade-offs between the materials, the fixing detail and the wind loading are set out in full on that page.

Screens, gates and boundary joinery. Privacy screening, slatted panels, side gates, bin stores, plant-room housings and pool equipment screening. Where the plant room and the screen are part of a new pool build, it is sequenced with pool plant rooms and equipment screening so the joinery meets the finished coping cleanly.

Where the outdoor joinery is part of a wider garden project, see landscaping and garden design.

Things we are called out for constantly:

• A door that sticks, drags or will not latch, or one that has dropped on its hinges.
• A wardrobe sliding door off its track, or a hinged door that has torn its hinge out of the board.
• A kitchen cabinet door hanging crooked, or a drawer runner that has collapsed.
• A swollen cabinet front under the sink.
• A shelf that has bowed or pulled out of the wall, or a bathroom cabinet that has come loose.
• A handle, knob or lock that needs replacing.
• A bed frame or unit that needs repairing.
• Flat-pack furniture that came in a box and is still in it.

We also do alterations: cutting a door down after new flooring; adding a shelf or a rail inside an existing wardrobe; splitting a cupboard into two compartments; boxing in a pipe that was left exposed; cutting an access hatch; and modifying cabinetry to take a new appliance.

A small repair takes a skilled carpenter, a full tool set and a travel window, and it is easy to treat as an interruption. We treat it as the front door of the relationship. A carpenter who fixes a sticking door well is the carpenter you call when you want the wardrobes done.

Send a photograph of the door, the drawer or the cabinet and we will tell you whether it is an adjustment or a replacement before anyone comes out. Where a property needs a steady trickle of small fixes rather than one visit, those are handled through our maintenance packages.

Related: furniture assembly, handyman services.

MDF machines beautifully, takes paint and lacquer better than anything else, and holds detail: it is the right core for painted doors, panelling and profiled fronts. Standard MDF is destroyed by water, so anywhere near a sink, a bathroom or an unconditioned space it must be a moisture-resistant grade, and the edges must be sealed.

Melamine-faced board (MFC) is the workhorse for carcasses and internal wardrobe components: dimensionally stable, hard-wearing, available in a wide range of finishes, and cost-effective. Its weakness is the edge: a poorly applied edge band is where moisture and impact damage start, which is why edging quality matters more than the face finish.

Plywood is stronger and holds fixings better than particle board, which makes it the right choice where load or repeated screwing matters: heavy shelving, drawer boxes, anything taking real weight. Higher-grade, moisture-resistant plywood is the sensible specification for humid and unconditioned positions.

Solid timber is used for frames, edges, mouldings, handrails and exposed structure. It is the most beautiful material and the one that moves most with humidity, so it needs to be detailed to allow that movement rather than restrained by it. Solid timber panels that are fixed rigidly across their width will split or bow.

Finishes. Laminate and melamine are the most durable and the least repairable. Lacquer and paint give the best appearance and can be touched up. High-gloss acrylic looks superb and shows every fingerprint and every scratch. Veneer gives real timber appearance over a stable core, which is often the best answer in this climate.

The Dubai-specific rules. Seal every cut edge, including the ones nobody sees. Treat any unconditioned space (balcony store, maid's room, garage, external cupboard) as a wet, hot environment and specify accordingly. Assume the interior is dry and the exterior is humid, and expect anything that spans between them to move.

Hinges. Concealed European-style hinges with integrated soft-close are the standard for cabinet and wardrobe doors. The critical points are the number of hinges for the door's weight and height, and whether the mounting plate is fixed into a material that will hold it. Butt hinges on room doors need to be sized for the leaf and set so the door does not drop.

Drawer runners. Full-extension soft-close runners on a proper load rating are the difference between a drawer that keeps running true and one that starts dragging under load. Under-mount runners give the cleanest look; side-mount runners are more forgiving and easier to service.

Sliding systems. Wardrobe sliding doors live or die by the track and roller quality and by whether the track was installed level. Most sliding-door failures we attend are a track that was never true, not a worn roller.

Lift systems, handles and locks. Gas-strut and mechanical lift systems for wall-unit doors, handleless J-pull and push-to-open profiles, handles and knobs in finishes that will not pit in coastal humidity, and locks for store rooms and cabinets.

Design and specification. A layout, material and finish specification and hardware specification, so you know exactly what you are buying. Changes are cheap at this stage and expensive later.

Written quote. Issued before any work begins, itemised, with scope and exclusions stated.

Fabrication. Components are cut, edged, drilled and finished before they come to site, which keeps the mess and the noise in your home to a minimum.

Delivery and installation. Access is arranged, common areas are protected, the pieces are brought in and assembled, carcasses are levelled and fixed into the wall construction, filler and scribe panels are cut to the actual wall line, doors and drawers are aligned, hardware is adjusted, and lighting is connected where it is part of the design.

Snagging and handover. We walk it with you, adjust anything that needs it, and clear the site. Door and drawer alignment is checked again after the joinery has settled. Where the wider property is being handed over at the same time, an independent snagging inspection catches what the developer left behind.

Apartments and towers run on the building's rules: the contractor registered with insurance on file and a work permit before the crew comes up, a booked service-lift slot for large components, restricted hours for noisy work, protection on the lifts and corridors, and waste out by the agreed route.

None of this is a problem, but it does change the plan. It is one reason we fabricate off site and bring finished components in: a single booked lift slot delivers the whole job instead of a week of cutting in a corridor. We hold the insurance buildings ask to see, and we handle the site paperwork.

Practical point for tower residents: measure your lift, not just your room. A 2.7m single-piece wardrobe carcass that will not fit in the service lift becomes a stairwell problem. We check that at survey.

• Repair or made-to-measure. An adjustment, a runner swap or a door eased and re-hung is a visit. A fitted wardrobe run is a design, a material order, a fabrication slot and an installation.
• Material and finish specification. Melamine-faced board, moisture-resistant MDF, veneer, lacquer, paint and high-gloss acrylic are different amounts of work as well as different materials.
• Run length and the state of the walls. How long the run is, and how far out of square and out of plumb the walls and ceiling are, because scribing and filler panels are where the time goes.
• Hardware grade. Hinges, runners, sliding tracks and lift mechanisms cover a wide range, and this is the part you operate every day.
• Interior fit. Drawer banks, internal lighting, pull-outs and dedicated shoe or luggage storage each add fabrication.
• Access. Tower deliveries, a booked service-lift slot and restricted working hours change how the job has to be delivered.

You get a written quote before any work begins.