Joiner in Cockenzie & Port Seton

We’ve been fitting joinery into East Lothian houses since 1989, and on this coast that length of time mostly teaches you what salt air does to timber and ironmongery.

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 the bespoke joinery design in Cockenzie & Port Seton is drawn, built and fitted by the same family run team.

Ring George or send over the room and he’ll come out and measure it.

Bespoke Joinery Design

We’ve been at this in East Lothian since 1989, and in a coastal town that length of time mostly teaches you what the weather does to timber.

Measuring first

We measure the opening at three heights and both depths before anything’s drawn. The smallest figure governs the carcass. Everything else goes into the scribe.

Drawing to what’s there

You get a drawing back with the sizes on it. Nothing’s cut until you’ve agreed it, which is the point where a change costs nothing. Once a board’s cut it costs a board, and once a run’s sprayed it costs a week.

Specifying for the coast

Salt air is hard on ironmongery and on any finish that isn’t properly cured. We specify for that rather than for a catalogue photo. Hinges and handles on an exposed elevation corrode long before the timber gives up, so they’re chosen for the air they’ll sit in.

Manufacture and Installation Process for Cockenzie & Port Seton Homes

The worry with any joinery job is a half finished room and a firm that’s moved on. The sequence is set against that.

Off site build

Carcasses, doors and drawers are made and sprayed in the workshop, flatted between coats and left to cure. None of that happens in your house.

Access checked early

The stone built terraced cottages here have narrow stairs and tight landings. A carcass that won’t turn a corner gets built in sections instead. We walk the route from the front door on the first visit rather than finding out on delivery day, and it takes about two minutes.

One team

The person who measured it fits it. That’s how carpentry company in Prestonpans work runs too, and it’s why nothing gets handed over half done.

Commercial and Residential Fit-Outs in Cockenzie & Port Seton

Work near the harbours has its own constraints, and we’d rather agree them up front.

Staging around use

Joinery’s finished off site and installed in sections, in the order that keeps the space usable. A shop stays open. A family keeps a room. Where a job’s near the harbour we’ll agree the working hours before we start rather than turning up and asking.

Domestic work

Houses run the same way, room by room. It’s the same standard as fitted joinery in Tranent, just a different postcode.

Staircases, Panelling and Mouldings

In the older stone built cottages the mouldings weren’t standard when they were cut. Matching one means making one.

Matching a profile

We take a section off the original and cut to match it. New architrave beside old should be hard to tell apart at a metre. A merchant profile that’s close but not the same is the thing that makes a repaired room look renovated, and it reads from the doorway.

Stairs

Balustrade spacing is brought to current requirements without changing how the stair looks. A replacement newel is jointed into the existing string rather than face fixed over it. That’s part of our joinery services.

Fitted Wardrobes and Storage

The housing here runs from one bedroom flats to five bedroom houses, so storage isn’t one problem.

Alcoves

The two recesses beside a chimney breast are rarely the same depth. We build to both and make the face frames read as one line. One side of a breast usually carries a flue and the other doesn’t, so matched shop bought units sit proud on one wall and leave a gap on the other every time.

Eaves and slopes

In the cottages the upstairs rooms sit partly in the roof. Rails go at the high side and drawers under the low side. Below about a metre four hundred of headroom a rail’s no use to anybody and a drawer bank is, so the roof line decides the interior rather than the floor plan.

Interiors

Layouts come from what goes in them. Do you need more hanging or more shelving? Most folk say hanging and then find it’s shelving once we’ve asked what’s actually in the room.

Custom Kitchens and Cabinetry

Kitchens round Gosford Road and Edinburgh Road are a mix of ages, and the services usually decide the layout before anyone else does.

Services first

Stack position, incoming main and meter get recorded first. A waste run needs a continuous fall and on a solid floor you’ve got to find it in the build up.

Cabinetry to the room

Recesses become full height pull outs. Dead corners take drawers rather than a carousel nobody reaches into. Appliance gaps come off the appliances you’ve bought.

Worktops

Joints are set away from the sink and the hob. Corners are levelled to each other before either run’s fixed. Two millimetres across a mitre shows for the life of the kitchen and there’s no fixing it afterwards.