A sticking sash. A shelf in the alcove. A door that has not closed since 1974.
Small Works is one joiner, Alec Vickery, and a bench on Caldwell Row in Stanmere. I take the jobs that are too small for a builder to book and do them to the standard furniture is held to.
$480 a day, and most jobs are half a day to two days. Quotes are written after a visit, and the visit is free within 12 miles of the shop.
- Fifteen years at this bench
- Lic. #000000 (sample)
- Insured to $2m
- $480 a day, half day minimum
- Booking four weeks out
Half a day to two days, and nothing that needs a skip.
Six kinds of work make up almost everything I am asked for. If your job is on this list it is worth a photograph, however small it feels when you describe it out loud.
Sash and casement windows
Cords, weights, parting beads, easing and draught seals, and new timber spliced into a rotten rail rather than a plastic window in the hole where a good one was.
Doors that stick, drop or will not latch
Re-hung on solid brass butts, hinge recesses plugged and cut again, and a frame packed back to level when the house has moved under it.
Shelves, cupboards and window seats
Built into the alcove they are going in and scribed to the plaster, because no wall in a house older than you is straight.
Stairs and bannisters
Loose treads, free spindles, split newel caps, and the bang on the fourth step that two people have quoted a whole new staircase for.
Furniture brought to the bench
Dovetails cut again by hand, split tops drawn together with a key from underneath, loose chairs, drawer runners, veneer lifted by a radiator.
Mouldings run to match
Skirting, architrave and beading ground from a lead profile taken off your own wall, because no merchant within 40 miles carries 1901.
And four things I turn down every week
- Plumbing and electrics. I will make good around whoever does them.
- Plastering beyond a patch where I have cut into it.
- Flat pack assembly. There are people who are faster and cheaper at it.
- Anything needing a skip, a scaffold or more than two days. That is a builder, and I will give you two names.
Ten small jobs, in detail.
Ten jobs out of the book, exactly as they were written down: what was wrong, what I did about it, what it is made of, how long it took and what it cost. Open any one of them. Yours is probably close to one of these.
A sash painted shut since 1986
Owlswick. Douglas fir, linseed oil paint, two coats.
- What was wrong
- Painted shut on both faces, both cords broken and lying in the boxes, and the bottom rail soft where rain had stood in the glazing rebate for a decade. The family had been opening the kitchen door instead.
- What was done
- Cut the paint seal with a knife, took off the staff beads and the parting bead, and dropped both sashes out. Spliced 90mm of new fir into the bottom rail, re-corded over the original weights, took a hair off the stiles with a plane and candled the runs so they move with one finger.
- What it is made of
- Douglas fir, 6mm waxed cotton sash cord, the original cast iron weights, a brass fitch catch, linseed putty
6 hours, one visit
$360plus $48 in materials
Prices are what these jobs were invoiced at, materials shown separately. Your house is not one of these houses, so the number on your quote comes after I have seen it.
$480 a day, and a quote that does not move.
A quote is not a number given over the phone by someone who has not seen the job. I come and look, measure, and write it down. It arrives within three days, priced in half days, and it is what you pay.
If something appears behind the plaster that neither of us could have known about, I stop, ring you, and we decide together before I spend any more of your money. That has happened four times in fifteen years.
Ask for a visit- Half a day, up to four hours
- $260
- A full day, eight hours at the job
- $480
- Two days, the longest job I take
- $940
- Materials, at cost plus ten percent, receipts with the invoice
- At cost
- The visit and the written quote, within 12 miles
- Free
- Beyond 12 miles the visit is $60, taken off the job if it goes ahead.
- No deposit under $500. Payment on the day the work finishes, by card or transfer.
- Anything I make is guaranteed for five years, and anything I repair for two.
Air dried oak from a yard at Thurlby, and brass that is not lacquered.
Oak, air dried four years
From a yard at Thurlby that stacks its own boards in stick. Kiln dried oak is quicker and moves more, and you find out which in the second winter.
Douglas fir for sash work
Slow grown fir holds a paint film and takes a splice better than modern pine, which is why sashes from 1890 are still here and sashes from 1990 are not.
Tulipwood for anything painted
Stable, close grained, and it takes eggshell without the grain coming up through the second coat.
Walnut and mahogany for matching
Kept in short lengths on the rack above the bench, so a repair to a 1900 handrail is made of something that will still match it in ten years.
Fittings and finishes
- Solid brass, unlacquered, so it goes brown at the same rate as the rest of the house
- Cast iron sash weights, the original ones, re-hung on 6mm waxed cotton cord
- Concealed hinges only where nobody will ever see them, butt hinges everywhere else
- Hard wax oil, shellac and wax, water based eggshell, linseed oil paint on anything outside
Eight towns, and the furthest is 11 miles.
One van and one pair of hands, so the radius is small on purpose. I am in Kettleby and Thurlby most Tuesdays, and a small job in either often waits less than four weeks because of it.
Stanmere
The shop is on Caldwell Row
Owlswick
3 miles
Bramber Green
5 miles
Kettleby
7 miles
Thurlby
8 miles
Loxley Vale
9 miles
Pentlow
10 miles
Wealdmoor
11 miles
Outside those eight, ring anyway. If it is a two day job I will usually come, and the $60 visit charge comes off the invoice.
Alec Vickery, and the shop on Caldwell Row.
I took the shop in 2011 from the joiner who had it before me. He was 71, he wanted out by Christmas, and he sold me the lease with his bench still bolted to the floor. It is the bench I work on. The vice needs a new screw and has needed one since 2014.
Before that: four years with a shopfitter, six making church furniture in a shop of eleven people, and one bad year on a housing site, which is where I learned exactly what I did not want to do for a living.
I work alone. That means the person who comes to look at the job is the person who writes the quote and the person who turns up to do it. It also means I am booked four weeks out, and I would rather tell you that now than find a way around saying it.
Most of what goes in the van is a hundred years old and sharper than what does not.
Three notes kept, because they said the useful thing.
He spent longer on the quote than I expected and less time in the house than I feared. The window opens with one finger, which it has not done since we bought the place in 1998.
Winifred Ockley, Owlswick
Sash overhaul, two windows
Two other people quoted me for new shelves. Alec scribed the old alcove instead and the gap behind them is gone. He also left the room cleaner than he found it, which I had not seen before.
Roderick Pelling, Kettleby
Alcove shelves
The quote came on paper, priced in half days, and the invoice matched it to the dollar. The back door shuts. My father could not shut that door and he lived here for thirty years.
Josephine Halliday, Bramber Green
Back door re-hung
Sample reviews, written for this concept site.
What happens between the photograph and the bench
Send a photograph
Small jobs are described badly and photographed well. Send one from where you are standing and I will tell you the same day whether it is mine or somebody else’s.
I come and measure
Twenty minutes with a tape and a torch, free within 12 miles. The quote follows within three days, in writing, priced in half days.
One van, dust sheets, one day
I arrive at eight, work through, and clear up. Nothing is left half finished overnight unless we agreed that it would be.
Questions asked at the door
Is there a minimum charge?
Half a day, $260, even if the job takes forty minutes. Most people save three or four things up and get them all done in one visit, which is the cheapest way to use me.
How far out are you booking?
About four weeks. I work alone, so that number is honest rather than a negotiating position. If a door will not lock or a window will not shut, say so and I will usually find an afternoon inside the week.
Can you match the mouldings in my house?
Yes. I take a lead profile off a surviving length, grind a cutter to it, and run the new timber in one pass. The cutter is kept and labelled with the address, so the next room matches too.
Do you take on kitchens, extensions or whole refits?
No. Nothing over two days. It is the whole reason this business exists: the jobs that are too small for a builder to bother with are the jobs I want. For anything bigger I will give you two names and no commission is involved.
What happens to the mess?
Dust sheets down before anything comes off the wall, extraction on the machines, floors swept and vacuumed, and every offcut goes back in the van. Cutting is done outside or at the shop whenever it can be.
Are you insured, and can I see it?
Public liability to $2m and Lic. #000000 (sample). The certificate is emailed with every quote without being asked for, because you are letting a stranger into your house.
Book a visit, and I will bring a tape.
Tell me what is wrong in your own words. If you can email a photograph as well, the quote comes back faster and closer to the final number.
- Telephone
- (555) 014-1109
- The shop
- 9 Caldwell Row, Stanmere, in the Pentlow valley
- When the phone is answered
- Before eight and after five. Between those I am usually behind a dust sheet, so leave a message and it is returned the same evening.
- Currently booking
- Four weeks out, and two Tuesdays held each month for small repairs