Bespoke Joinery in Elphinstone

Thirty seven years of fitting joinery into East Lothian houses is mostly thirty seven years of learning what the walls will and will not allow.

George Herkes & Son Joinery has worked across East Lothian since 1989, holds East Lothian Trading Standards Trusted Trader accreditation and is rated 5.0 from 62 reviews, and joinery across Elphinstone is surveyed, built and fitted by the same team throughout.

Send George the room and the sizes you have and he will come and take the rest.

Bespoke Kitchens

Thirty seven years of fitting kitchens in East Lothian housing settles one thing early: the room decides the layout, and the room here is usually a mid century council built plan with the services already placed.

Services before layout

The stack position, the meter and the incoming main are recorded first. A waste run needs a continuous fall, and on a ground floor slab that fall has to be found inside the floor build up rather than assumed.

Carcass specification

Eighteen millimetre board, dowelled and glue blocked at the corners, with a solid back panel where the run carries worktop weight. Soft close runners are rated by drawer width and load, not fitted by default.

Setting out

Appliance gaps are taken from the appliances. Worktop joints are placed away from the sink and the hob. Fillers land where the eye does not. On a galley run the wall cabinets are set out from the ceiling line rather than the worktop, because a ceiling that drops fifteen millimetres over three metres will show along the upper edge of a run and will not show along the base. Setting out from the wrong datum is the commonest reason a fitted kitchen looks fitted rather than built.

Doors, Windows and Staircases for Elphinstone Homes

Elphinstone’s stock runs from nineteenth century mining village housing through the 1958 and 1970 Duries Park streets to later private infill, and each layer takes a different approach.

Openings in older stock

Village openings are rarely square and rarely standard. Leaves are scribed to the lining, hinges are let in by hand, and the stop is reset to the closed door.

Windows to the elevation

Sightline, glazing bar width and cill projection are taken off the existing frame as dimensions before anything is ordered.

Stairs

Balustrade spacing is worked to current requirements. A replacement newel is jointed into the string. The same standard runs built wardrobes in Elphinstone.

Materials, Finishes and Craftsmanship in Elphinstone

Material choice here answers the wall it meets. Prefabs erected after the war lasted into the 1980s in this village, so replacement work sits against mixed legacy construction.

Boards and timber

Hand painted MDF holds a crisp arris on a shaker door and stays flat. Oak and walnut take a clear lacquer where the grain is wanted. Veneer is laid with the figure running through the run.

Finishing

Spray finishing happens off site, flatted between coats and stacked to cure. A door finished in a living room never matches. The same workshop stage sits behind bespoke joinery services in Tranent.

Hardware

Hinge count follows leaf weight. Handles are set out from a rod so they line through along the run. Runner load ratings are matched to what the drawer will hold rather than to its size, which is why a cutlery drawer and a pan drawer of the same width take different gear.

Fitted Wardrobes and Dressing Rooms

The stock here is one, two and three bedroom, so wardrobes have to come out of the wall rather than stand against it.

Alcoves and breasts

Depths either side of a chimney breast are measured separately because they are rarely equal. The run is built to both and made to read as one from the door.

Sloping ceilings

Hanging rails go at the high side, drawers under the low side. The awkward end of the room does the storage. Under about one metre four hundred of headroom a hanging rail is unusable and a drawer bank is not, so the height at which the roof line crosses the run is the dimension that decides the interior.

Media Walls and Storage Units

A media wall over a working flue is a heat and cable problem before it is a joinery one.

Cables and ventilation

Trunking is set into the carcass at build stage with a brushed plate where the leads come through. Ventilation is left behind the panel rather than cut in later with a hole saw.

Fixings

Fixings go into the masonry rather than the plaster, resin anchored in stone and frame fixed in block. A media wall carrying a screen and a soundbar is holding real weight off one wall, and plasterboard fixings on their own will not do it however many of them go in.

Cabinetry, Furniture and Alcove Joinery

Alcove joinery is the highest value square metre in most of these houses, and it is the one most often left as a bowed shelf.

Setting out an alcove

The recess is measured at three heights, the carcass is built narrower than the smallest, and the face frame is scribed back on site.

Freestanding pieces

Where a piece has to move house later it is built as furniture, jointed and finished on all faces rather than scribed to one wall. That is a specification decision taken at drawing stage, because a carcass built to be scribed has an unfinished edge that only ever faces plaster, and one built to stand alone does not.