One alcove in a Wrexham terrace, start to finish. This is what “fitted” actually means — and why nothing off a shelf can do it.
Offered up, clamped, checked for level — nothing fixed until the recess has told me what it’s really doing. This one narrows 12mm from picture rail to skirting. They all do something.
Scribed the end panel to a wall that’s 12mm out. Pencil along the wall, plane down to the line, offer it back — until it touches the plaster the whole way down. Then the shelves go in, housed, not just screwed.
Doors on butt hinges, then eased with the block plane until the gap runs even all the way round. You’ll check it with your eye every evening from the sofa. So do I, before I leave.
Caulked, filled, two coats — and the family’s books were on the shelves before I’d finished packing the van. The recess looks like the house was built with it there. That’s the job.
Written quote within 48 hours of visiting. I answer my own phone.
Plaster bellies. Chimney breasts lean. A recess that measures 1120mm at the skirting will be 1132mm by the picture rail, and skirting cut by hand in 1935 doesn’t meet anything at ninety degrees. None of that is a problem. It’s just what houses do.
Scribing is how a joiner deals with it honestly. I offer the panel up, run a pencil along the wall so the panel takes on the wall’s exact shape, then plane down to the line and offer it back. When it’s right, the panel touches the plaster the whole way down — no gap, no bead of filler doing a panel’s job, no shadow line to catch your eye from the sofa every evening.
Flat-pack can’t do that. It’s cut dead square in a factory for a room that doesn’t exist. In an alcove, square is the one thing your walls will never be.
Moisture-resistant MDF for painted carcasses and shelves; primed softwood for face frames, skirting and trim. Nothing that sags or swells in a year.
18mm MR MDF · 25mm primed redwoodHung on proper butt hinges, not sprung clips, and eased with a block plane until the gap runs even all the way round.
Butt hinges · 2mm gap all roundI’ll fill, caulk and paint the unit myself, or prime it and leave it ready for your decorator. We settle which at quote stage, in writing.
Painted · Or ready-for-decoratorNo showroom shots. These are customers’ living rooms — befores with the pencil lines still on the plaster, mids with the clamps on, afters with the recess filled edge to edge. Shavings and dust sheets stay in the picture.
I’m Rhys Madoc. Twelve years a carpenter in and around Wrexham — site work first, then fitting kitchens, staircases and built-ins for other people’s firms. Good firms, mostly. I learned how a job should be run: turn up when you said, keep the house clean, never let a bad join leave with your van.
In May I started on my own. Three months in, and I’ll be straight with you: the business is new. The hands aren’t.
What changed is the name on the work. When I fitted for others, the mistakes were theirs to smooth over and the credit was theirs to keep. Now every join — the good ones and the ones I redo before you ever see them — has my name on it. That makes me slower to say “that’ll do” than any man I’ve ever worked for.
£1m public liability insurance · 5.0 from 8 Google reviews · I answer my own phone, evenings includedTwelve years in graphite, three months in blue. Not to scale — the graphite would run off the page.
I’d rather show you all of them than pretend there are hundreds. Every review is below, in full, with the job it belongs to.
5.0 / 5 · Google · 8 reviews · all of them here
Check me against the live listing — search Madoc the Joiner, Wrexham on Google. Same eight reviews, same words, same order.
Madoc built alcove cupboards and shelving either side of our chimney breast. Our walls are anything but straight and he scribed every panel to follow them — you couldn’t slide a bank card between the unit and the plaster. Dust sheets down every morning, hoovered up every evening. Faultless.
The written quote arrived the day after he visited, itemised down to the paint. He was the only joiner of the four we rang who put anything in writing at all. The finished shelves are square, solid and exactly what we asked for.
Five internal doors hung and eased in our 1930s semi. Every one of them used to stick or rattle; now they all close with the same quiet click. He took the old doors away and swept the hall before he left.
A genuinely small job — one floating shelf and a wardrobe door that wouldn’t shut. He came the same week, fixed both in a morning and charged fairly. Nice to find a tradesman who actually wants the small stuff.
Our flat-pack wardrobes were leaning like the Tower of Pisa. Madoc rebuilt the carcasses, fixed them to the wall properly and scribed a filler panel so the whole run finally looks built-in. Should have called him first and skipped the flat-pack.
Fitted our kitchen after another firm let us down twice. Calm, methodical, and he answered his phone every single time — evenings included. The corner units line up the way the brochure promised and the last fitter couldn’t manage.
An alcove unit for the telly with shelves above, and new skirting matched to the original 1902 profile. You would swear the unit had always been there. Floor hoovered at the end of every day, not just the last one.
Madoc repaired our decking and rebuilt the steps that had gone spongy. Honest about which boards needed replacing and which didn’t — the quote actually came in under what we’d braced ourselves for. He’s booked back in for alcove shelves this autumn.
Letting a stranger into your living room is the real decision. So here’s the whole process, plainly, before you’ve spent a penny.
You get me, not an office. If I’m mid-cut when you call, I ring back the same evening.
Mon–Sat 08:00–18:00 · Evenings answeredI come at a time that suits and measure the recess properly — top, middle and bottom, because they’ll all differ.
Folding rule · Rod · NotebookWithin 48 hours you have it in writing, itemised — materials, labour, finish. No surprises bolted on later.
48 hours · Itemised · In writingDust sheets down before the first cut. Tools tidied and floor dusted down at the end of every day, not just the last one.
Dust sheets down · Tidy each eveningWe check it together, door by door. Then I hoover the floor and take the offcuts away with me.
Floor hoovered · Offcuts gone
Written quote within 48 hours of visiting.
Tell me about the alcove — where it is, roughly how wide, what you want it to do. I’ll come and measure it properly, and you’ll have a written quote within 48 hours.