Alex, the workshop and the way we work
Live Joinery is a small, family-run carpentry workshop based in E16. The name most clients know is Alex — he is usually the person who replies to the enquiry, comes to measure, talks through the awkward corner in the room, and is back again for the fitting.
That matters because fitted joinery is personal work. We are often in bedrooms, nurseries, front rooms and half-finished renovation spaces. The project goes better when the person measuring the wall also understands what is being stored, who uses the room, where the plug sockets are, and how tidy the house needs to be left at the end of each day.
There are no salespeople, no project managers and no subcontracted install crews. The team is small on purpose: one conversation, one set of measurements, one workshop build, one fitting team.
Who you deal with
Most projects start with Alex. He is the person who checks the postcode, asks for the first room photos, visits to measure, and explains what will and will not work before a quote is written.
The workshop team then turns that survey into a cut list, carcasses, doors, drawers and finish samples. On fitting days, the same small team protects the room, installs the joinery, adjusts the doors and leaves the space usable at the end of the day wherever the job allows.
That continuity is deliberate. Fitted furniture can fail in the handover between measuring, drawing, making and fitting. We keep those stages close so details like sockets, coving, skirting, uneven plaster and access constraints do not disappear between conversations.
A family business, not a franchise
We’ve been making fitted furniture for London homes for more than ten years, with combined experience across joinery and the broader construction industry of more than twenty.
We work mostly with homeowners directly, occasionally with interior designers on individual rooms. We don’t bid on huge developments. Smaller, more considered work in the houses people actually live in is what we’re built for.
What we make
Most of what we do falls into six categories: fitted wardrobes, alcove units, integrated media walls, bay-window seating, built-in storage (under-stairs, in eaves, in awkward corners) and full bespoke kitchens. About 70% of a typical year is wardrobes and alcove units — those are the workhorse jobs in East London period homes — and the rest mixes between the other four.
Within each category we work across a range of styles: hand-painted shaker doors for period homes, flat-fronted laminate or veneer for modern interiors, and in-frame painted kitchens where the room warrants the extra time. We do not push a house style. The piece has to fit the room, the storage brief and the budget.
How we got here
The business started with site work across East London for builders and architects. A pattern emerged: site managers kept asking for bespoke storage on top of the main fitouts, because what they could get off the shelf never fitted the rooms they were finishing. That side-work became its own business, and the focus narrowed to the joinery itself — measured, designed, built and installed end-to-end.
We’re five Houzz Awards and 36 five-star reviews into that journey, with no plans to grow into a bigger operation. The size is part of how we keep quality consistent.
What clients tend to notice
The reviews mention the same things again and again: careful measuring, clean fitting days, fast replies, clear pricing, and the fact that the finished piece looks like it belongs to the room rather than being pushed into it.
We like the practical side of the work as much as the finished photos: the hidden cable route in a media wall, the shoe storage that finally makes a hallway work, the wardrobe interior that fits the way someone actually dresses in the morning. Good joinery should be quiet once it is finished. It should just make the room easier to live in.
How we work
We charge for two things: materials and time. Both are priced into a single fixed quote at the start, agreed on the first visit. We don’t take deposits before we’ve shown you the design we’ll build. We don’t bill day-rates that drift if the job takes longer than expected. We don’t bring sample doors on day one of install hoping you’ll change your mind on the finish.
What we do bring to every project: a measured plan, a cut list, our own tools, dust sheets, a vacuum cleaner that runs every day, and the patience to do the small fiddly bits properly: the scribe to a wonky wall, the panel that has to be trimmed around the cornice, the hinge that needs one more adjustment before the door sits right.
For the day-to-day of how a project actually runs from enquiry to handover, see our process — or get in touch for a free site survey across East London.
