Glasgow, Glasgow
Joiner in Glasgow
Joinery in a Glasgow tenement is a different trade from joinery in a modern house. Nothing is square, the skirtings are 200mm deep with a profile you cannot buy off a rack, and anything you fit has to look like it has always been there rather than like it arrived in a van.
Matching what is already there
Period skirting and architrave profiles can usually be matched, either from stock ranges that get close or by having a profile run. Fitting a modern chamfered skirting into a room with an original moulded one is the sort of thing that looks acceptable on the day and wrong for as long as you live there.
Nothing is plumb, level or square
A tenement wall can bow 20mm over its length and floors often fall noticeably towards the bay. Everything gets scribed rather than cut square and hoped for. It is slower, and it is the whole difference between joinery that fits a period room and joinery that has been pushed into it.
Original features worth saving
Shutters, press cupboards, panelled doors and deep window reveals are worth repairing rather than replacing in almost every case. A painted-shut shutter that has not moved in fifty years can usually be freed off and made to work again, and it is a far better outcome than a new blind.
Working in a shared building
Materials come up a shared close and waste goes back down it. We sheet the route, keep the stair clear at the end of each day and take everything away with us. It matters more in a tenement than anywhere else because it is not only your building.