How to Choose a Carpenter for Custom Furniture in Delhi NCR

How do I judge a carpenter before I commit?

You are not judging charm and you are not judging the lowest number. You are judging whether this person can explain their own work.

• Look at finished work, ideally in a home. Photographs are useful but selective. If you can see a wardrobe they built two or three years ago, look at the things that age badly: whether shutter gaps are still even, whether edge banding has lifted, whether the inside is finished as well as the outside, whether the back panel is a proper panel or a thin sheet pinned on.
• Insist on a site visit before any quote. A carpenter who quotes over the phone for fitted furniture has not measured your walls, checked whether the floor is level, found the switchboards, or looked at how the door opens. That quote will change, and it will change upwards.
• Ask them to explain a trade-off. Ask why they would use one board grade in the kitchen base and another in a bedroom wardrobe. Someone who works to a standard will answer in specifics. Someone who says everything is best quality has told you nothing.
• Ask how long it will take and who will be here. Fitted work means people, dust and noise in your flat for days. Find out how many people, which days, and who is in charge when the main person is at another site.
• Ask what happens if something does not fit. This is the most revealing question. A good answer describes measuring twice, allowing tolerance and building in sections. A bad answer is that it will not happen.
• Get more than one quote, and compare like for like. Two quotes are only comparable if both specify the same board grade, the same thickness, the same hardware and the same finish. Otherwise the cheaper one is usually cheaper for a reason you have not been told.

Our note on small repairs makes a related point: a good way to try someone out is to give them a small job first. A day of repairs tells you a great deal about how someone works before you hand over a whole room.

Get it drawn before anything is cut

A drawing is not a formality. It is the only way two people can be sure they are imagining the same piece of furniture.

It does not have to be a professional rendering. A dimensioned sketch that you have both looked at and agreed is enough, and many carpenters will do this on paper at the site visit. What matters is that it is specific.

• Overall dimensions. Height, width and depth of every unit, in millimetres, measured against your actual walls rather than assumed.
• The internal layout. How many shelves, at what heights, how many drawers, where the hanging rail goes, where the loft section starts. “Standard wardrobe” means different things to different people.
• Which way things open. Sliding or hinged, and which side each hinged shutter opens from. A shutter that opens into a doorway or blocks a window is a permanent daily irritation and the commonest layout regret.
• Where the services are. Switchboards, sockets, the AC point, water lines, the gas pipe, the electricity meter. Mark them on the drawing, because building over one of them is an expensive undo.
• The finish, by area. Which surfaces get laminate, which get veneer or paint, whether the inside of the wardrobe is finished and in what.
• Handle and hardware positions. Cheap to decide now, annoying to change later.

Both of you should keep a copy. When a question comes up on day four — and it will — the drawing settles it in a minute rather than becoming an argument about what was said.

The material list is where the money actually is

Two identical-looking wardrobes can differ hugely in cost, and the difference is almost entirely inside the material list. This is the document to insist on.

• Every board line needs material, grade, thickness and quantity. “Ply” is not a specification. “18mm BWP plywood, six sheets” is. Our guide on choosing plywood for a Delhi home explains the grades and where each belongs.
• Hardware itemised separately. Hinges with type and count per shutter, drawer channels with type and load rating, handles, any lift-ups or baskets. See our guide on kitchen shutters and hinges.
• Finish specified by area. Laminate, veneer, membrane or paint, and which surfaces get which. Polishing is normally priced by area rather than by piece, as our wood polishing cost guide explains.
• Edge treatment. Which edges get banding or lipping. Unsealed board edges are where moisture enters, and in Delhi that matters.
• Who buys what. Either you buy materials and pay for labour, or the carpenter supplies everything against the agreed list. Both work. What causes disputes is the vague middle, where nobody is quite sure who chose the board that turned out to be the wrong grade.
• What happens to leftover material. Agree in advance whether surplus sheets and offcuts stay with you or go with the carpenter. It is a small thing that sours the end of otherwise good jobs.

Then check the delivery. Board carries markings on its edge giving grade and standard, and you are entitled to look at them before anything is cut. After cutting, you have no leverage at all.

Delhi questions to settle before work starts

Some things are specific to building fitted furniture in a Delhi flat, and every one of them has caught someone out.

• Will it get through the door? The classic disaster is furniture built in a workshop that cannot be carried into the room it was made for. Measure the flat entrance, the lift, the staircase turn and the room doorway, and if anything is tight, the piece has to be built on site or built in knock-down sections that assemble in the room. Raise this before, not after.
• Site-built or workshop-built? Site building means dust, noise and people in your flat for days but no transport problem. Workshop building is cleaner and often better finished but has to fit through the door. Most fitted work in Delhi is a mix. Agree which parts are which.
• Humidity and timing. Delhi swings from a bone-dry April to a saturated August. Board and timber brought straight from a damp store into a dry flat, or the reverse, will move. Ask that materials sit in the flat for a day or two before being cut, and be aware that polishing and painting behave differently in high monsoon humidity. Our tip on protecting wood from Delhi humidity covers the seasonal picture.
• Termites. They are endemic here and they reach skirting, door frames and wardrobe backs first. Ask for treated board where wood meets a wall or floor, an air gap behind fitted units, and a raised base rather than one sitting flat on the slab. If there is any history of termites in the flat, deal with that before building, as our guide on termite-damaged furniture explains.
• Damp walls. If a wall has ever shown seepage, building a sealed unit tight against it traps the moisture. Fix the wall first and leave a gap.
• Society rules. Many Delhi and NCR societies restrict working hours, weekend work, lift use for material, and where debris may be kept. Check with your RWA before booking dates so the job does not stop halfway.
• Dust and clean-up. Cutting board indoors makes an enormous amount of fine dust. Agree who covers what, where cutting happens, and who removes the waste at the end.

Staging the payment so both sides are protected

The fair principle is simple: money follows work. A carpenter genuinely needs funds for materials before they can start, and you genuinely need leverage until the job is finished. A staged structure gives both.

• Stage one, materials. Paid when the agreed material list is being bought, and ideally against the merchant’s bill so you can see what was purchased. This is a legitimate advance; a large advance with no material list attached is not.
• Stage two, at an agreed point of progress. Carcasses built and standing, or the units in place before shutters and finishing. Something you can walk up to and look at.
• Stage three, on completion and after snagging. Held back until you have gone round with a list. This last stage is the one that gets the small things finished, and it is why paying everything early is such a bad idea.
• Make a snag list and be specific. Every shutter aligned with even gaps and closing flush, every drawer running and closing, handles straight, edges banded, no unfinished internal surfaces, debris cleared. Walk it with the carpenter rather than sending a message.
• Keep everything in writing, even informally. A message thread with the drawing, the material list and the agreed stages is enough. Nobody needs a contract; everybody needs a record.
• Ask about spares. A couple of spare hinges, a spare damper and any leftover laminate offcut left behind will make a repair years later far easier.

Finally, pay the carpenter directly and only for work done. XpertWorker never takes money from you and does not set anyone’s price. For judging quotes in general, our note on hiring without being overcharged and our hiring checklist are worth reading alongside this.