A joiner makes things out of timber in a workshop, then fits them into a building. Doors, staircases, windows, wardrobes, kitchen cabinets, panelling and fitted furniture are all joinery. The name comes from the work itself: joiners create the joints that hold pieces of wood together, using techniques like mortise and tenon, dovetails and dowels rather than relying on nails.
That workshop element is the key difference between a joiner and a carpenter, and it is the source of most of the confusion when people are trying to work out who to call. This guide covers what a joiner actually does day to day, the jobs they take on, how they differ from other trades, and what the work typically costs.
The short answer
A joiner designs, measures, machines, assembles and finishes timber components off site, then installs them. The bulk of the skill happens in a workshop with machinery, before anything arrives at your house.
Their work falls into a few broad categories:
- Fitted furniture, including wardrobes, alcove units, media walls, home offices and storage
- Kitchens, from individual cabinets to full room fit-outs
- Structural timber items such as staircases, doors, door frames and windows
- Decorative work including panelling, skirting, architrave, cornice and mouldings
- Commercial joinery for shops, bars, restaurants, offices and reception areas
- Restoration and matching, copying existing period details so repairs are invisible
- Finishing, either spray painting or hand polishing the completed pieces
Joiner vs carpenter vs cabinet maker
These three trades overlap heavily and many tradespeople do all three. The distinctions still matter when you are describing a job.
| Joiner | Carpenter | Cabinet maker | |
| Works mainly | In a workshop | On site | In a workshop |
| Typical output | Doors, stairs, windows, fitted furniture | Roof timbers, stud walls, floors, decking | Furniture and cabinetry |
| Joints | Cut and glued joints | Nailed and screwed fixings | Fine joints, often visible by design |
| Machinery | Saws, planers, spindle moulders, routers | Hand and power tools on site | Similar to a joiner, often finer scale |
| You need them for | A new staircase or fitted wardrobes | A loft conversion or new floor | A freestanding piece of furniture |
The simplest test: if the item needs to be made before it can be fitted, it is joinery. If it is built in place as part of the structure of the building, it is carpentry.
In practice, most companies offering bespoke joinery cover carpentry too, because a fit-out job usually needs both. A media wall might need studwork built on site (carpentry) before the finished cabinetry goes in (joinery).
What a joiner does on a typical project
Understanding the sequence helps you know what to expect and when.
Survey and measure
The joiner visits the property and takes detailed measurements, checking for level, plumb and square in multiple places. In older buildings the width of an alcove at floor level and at ceiling level can differ by several centimetres, and every later decision depends on catching that at this stage.
Design and drawings
Layout, materials, door style, internal fittings, hardware and finish all get decided and drawn up. Sign-off happens here, before any timber is cut. Changing a drawing costs nothing; changing a finished cabinet is expensive.
Machining and preparation
Back at the workshop, sheet materials and timber are cut down, planed, thicknessed and profiled. This is where the specialist machinery earns its place. A spindle moulder can reproduce a Victorian skirting profile that no builders’ merchant stocks.
Assembly
Components are glued, clamped and assembled into finished units. Working in a workshop means controlled conditions, proper clamping pressure and accurate squaring, none of which is achievable on a dusty landing.
Finishing
Painted work is sprayed in a dedicated booth, which produces an even surface with no brush marks. Natural timber may be oiled, lacquered or French polished, a traditional hand technique that builds up many thin coats of shellac to bring out the depth of the grain. Doing this off site matters because dust, humidity and temperature all affect how a coating cures.
Installation
The finished pieces are delivered and fitted, scribed to follow the actual shape of your walls, then touched up in place. Because the making is already done, installation is usually far quicker and tidier than people expect.
The skills involved
Joinery is a skilled trade with a long training route, typically three to four years of apprenticeship followed by years of practice. The core competencies include:
- Reading and producing technical drawings, including cutting lists and setting out rods
- Accurate measuring and marking, often working to within a millimetre
- Machine operation, safely and precisely, on saws, planers, moulders and routers
- Joint cutting, choosing the right joint for the load, the material and the look
- Material knowledge, understanding how different timbers move with humidity
- Scribing, cutting a component to follow an uneven surface so no gap shows
- Finishing, preparation, spraying and hand polishing
That last skill is more decisive than most people realise. Two identical cabinets, one sprayed properly and one painted by hand on site, look like different products.
Types of joiner
The trade splits into specialisms, and knowing the terms helps when you are reading quotes.
| Type | What they focus on |
| Bench joiner | Works in the workshop making doors, stairs, windows and furniture |
| Site joiner | Installs joinery on site, first fix and second fix |
| Machinist | Operates the workshop machinery, cutting and profiling components |
| Shopfitting joiner | Commercial interiors, counters, display units and retail fit-outs |
| Finisher or polisher | Spray finishing and French polishing |
| Restoration joiner | Repairing and matching historic timber work |
Smaller firms combine several of these roles. A one-person business will do all of them; a larger workshop will have people who specialise.
Common jobs a joiner takes on
Here is the practical list, the things homeowners actually ring up about.
Around the house:
- Fitted wardrobes running wall to wall and floor to ceiling
- Alcove cupboards and shelving either side of a chimney breast
- Understairs storage, pull-out drawers and hidden cupboards
- Window seats with lift-up storage
- Media walls with hidden cable routes and ventilation
- Home office desks, shelving and cable management
- Boot rooms, utility storage and pantry cupboards
Structural and architectural:
- New staircases, or replacing spindles, handrails and treads
- Internal and external doors, hung and fitted with locks and ironmongery
- Timber windows, sashes and casements
- Panelling, from simple shaker to full wall panelling
- Skirting, architrave, dado rails and cornice, including matching existing profiles
- Loft hatches, access panels and airing cupboards
Commercial:
- Bar counters, back bars and banquette seating
- Restaurant fixed seating and service stations
- Reception desks and office storage walls
- Shop display units, shelving and counters
What joiners deal with in older properties
Jersey has a great deal of granite, and granite buildings behave differently from modern block and plaster. Farmhouses, cottages, converted outbuildings and older townhouses tend to share the same set of challenges.
- Walls that lean or bow. A rigid unit pushed against a curved wall will rock or leave a wedge-shaped gap. The joiner scribes the edge to follow the wall’s real profile.
- Floors that slope. In a room with a 20mm fall, a run of base units ends up with a visibly tilted worktop unless each carcass is levelled independently and the difference is absorbed in the plinth.
- Reveals of varying depth. Thick rubble walls mean a window reveal can change depth along its length, so a shelf or seat has to be cut to match rather than to a single measurement.
- Salt air and humidity. Coastal conditions are harder on materials and finishes than an inland site, which makes moisture-resistant boards and fully sealed edges more than a cosmetic choice.
This is precisely the work a joiner is trained for, and it is why standard furniture so often disappoints in an older home.
What does a joiner cost?
Rates vary with the complexity of the work, the materials and the finish, so treat these as a starting point rather than a quote. Anything accurate follows a site visit.
| Type of work | Rough guide |
| Day rate for general joinery | £250 to £400 per day |
| Hanging an internal door | £120 to £250 per door |
| Skirting and architrave, per room | £400 to £900 |
| Pair of alcove units with shelving | £2,000 to £4,500 |
| Full wall of fitted wardrobes | £4,000 to £9,000 |
| Media wall or TV unit | £2,500 to £6,000 |
| New staircase | £3,500 upwards |
| Bespoke kitchen | £18,000 upwards |
What increases the price:
- Sprayed or hand-polished finishes rather than plain board
- Solid timber rather than sheet materials
- Curves, angles and non-standard shapes
- Integrated lighting and specialist internal fittings
- Difficult access, upper floors, or working around occupied rooms
What reduces it:
- Simpler door styles with less detail
- Standard depths where the space allows
- Grouping several rooms into one job so setup and delivery is shared
- Flexibility on timing rather than a fixed short deadline
Three typical jobs, and what they involved
These are composite examples of the kinds of work that come up most often.
Replacing a tired staircase. An open-plan renovation where the existing stairs were structurally sound but visually wrong for the new scheme. Rather than a full replacement, the treads, spindles and handrail were remade in the workshop and swapped over, keeping the existing carriage. The house stayed usable throughout because the stairs were only out of action for a single day.
Matching Victorian mouldings. A townhouse where one room had lost its original skirting during earlier work. Nothing off the shelf matched. A section of the surviving profile was copied, cutters were ground to match it, and new lengths were run in the workshop. Once painted, the new and old sections are indistinguishable.
A restaurant back bar. A commercial fit-out with a curved front section and integrated bottle display, built and sprayed entirely off site so the venue lost as little trading time as possible. The install ran overnight, with touch-ups completed before opening the next day.
Frequently asked questions
Is a joiner the same as a carpenter?
No, though the trades overlap and many people do both. A joiner makes timber items in a workshop and then installs them. A carpenter works on site, building the structural timber elements of a building such as roofs, floors and stud walls.
Do joiners do kitchens?
Yes. A joiner can build a kitchen as individual cabinets made to the dimensions of the room, rather than fitting standard modular units with filler panels. They will usually handle worktops, doors and finishing too, and coordinate the plumbing and electrical work.
How long does a joinery project take?
For fitted furniture, allow six to twelve weeks from first survey to installation, and longer for a full kitchen. Roughly a third is design and approval, most of the rest is workshop time, and installation itself is often only a few days.
Can a joiner repair rather than replace?
Often, yes, and it is usually cheaper. Rotten window sills, damaged stair treads, sticking doors and split panels can frequently be repaired or partly remade rather than replaced entirely.
What qualifications should a joiner have?
Look for a completed apprenticeship or a City and Guilds or NVQ Level 2 or 3 in carpentry and joinery, plus public liability insurance. For most homeowners, though, a workshop you can visit and a portfolio of completed local work tells you more than a certificate.
Do I need a joiner or a kitchen fitter?
A kitchen fitter installs units that have been bought in. A joiner can make the units as well as install them, which is the route to take if your room is an awkward shape, if you want a specific finish, or if standard sizes would leave dead space.
Getting started
The most useful first conversation is about the room rather than the furniture. What the space is used for, what currently annoys you about it, and how you want it to look in ten years shapes the design far more than a catalogue does.
Davision Interiors Ltd covers joinery and carpentry across all parishes of Jersey, from single doors and staircases through to fitted furniture, kitchens, home renovations and commercial fit-outs, with spray finishing and French polishing carried out in house. Get in touch to arrange a site visit and a no-obligation quote.