Custom joinery and wardrobes in Dubai: cost and process

Those bands cover the fitted wardrobes, walk-in closets, kitchen carcassing, media walls and wall panelling we build under a renovation contract. They are working ranges, not a rate card, and the number on your project moves with ceiling height, front finish and how much of the internal fit-out you actually want.

Fitted, built-in, walk-in: what you are buying

Three terms get used interchangeably in Dubai showrooms and they describe different jobs.

A fitted wardrobe is manufactured to your room's real dimensions and scribed to the walls, floor and ceiling on site. It sits flush at the top, the side and the carcass edge, with nothing left to collect dust or need a filler strip. The unit reads as part of the architecture.

A built-in wardrobe goes further: the room already has a recess or a stud-framed niche, and the joinery fills it, so only doors and internal fittings are visible. Most Dubai apartments hand over with a builder's wardrobe of exactly this type, usually melamine on chipboard with a single hanging rail and one shelf. Replacing it is one of the most common jobs we get called for in Marina and Business Bay towers.

A walk-in closet is a room rather than a unit. It brings its own coordination problems: lighting circuit, an AC supply or at least a return path, sometimes a sprinkler head that now sits inside a new enclosure. In a tower that last point is not cosmetic. If a partition or a full-height run of joinery ends up obstructing a head, the fire system has been altered, and that goes through the owners association and Civil Defence sign-off rather than through your carpenter.

On doors, the choice between hinged and sliding is driven by clearance, not taste. Hinged doors need 600 to 650mm of swing in front of the run, which a bedroom in a two-bedroom apartment often does not have once the bed is in. Sliding doors need none of that, but they cost you roughly 80 to 100mm of internal depth for the track assembly, they only ever expose half the wardrobe at a time, and a poorly specified bottom track collects Dubai dust and starts binding within a year. Where the room allows it, hinged with soft-close hinges is the better long-term unit.

Materials: what actually happens to MDF and veneer in this climate

This is the part that separates joinery built for Dubai from joinery built to a catalogue.

Coastal Dubai sits at 60 to 90% relative humidity for months, with the highest readings overnight. Inside an air-conditioned apartment the same air drops to 20 to 40% RH. Every panel in your wardrobe is hygroscopic, which means it takes on and gives up moisture with the surrounding air, and swells or shrinks as it does.

Where this becomes expensive is the intermittent AC pattern that is completely normal here: a holiday home switched off for six weeks, an owner who kills the cooling when they travel, a villa where the AC is set to a holding temperature. The panel goes through repeated wet-dry cycling instead of sitting at a stable moisture content. Veneer, which is a thin layer of real timber glued to a substrate that moves at a different rate, is the first thing to fail. It lifts at edges, bubbles across a large door face, and shows hairline cracking in the lacquer over joints. Doors that hung correctly in March start catching on the frame in August because the core has taken up moisture and grown a millimetre.

Standard MDF is the worst offender at its raw edges. Any unsealed edge, especially the bottom edge of a base unit sitting on a screed that has not fully dried, wicks moisture and swells irreversibly. We have opened up two-year-old wardrobes in seafront villas where the plinth had gone soft and spongy while the door faces still looked new.

What we specify instead, and why:

| Material | Where it works | Where it fails |

|---|---|---|

| Moisture-resistant MDF (MR/green core) | Carcass and painted fronts in AC'd interiors, coastal included | Still swells if edges are left unsealed or it sits in standing water |

| Marine or BWP-grade plywood | Wet zones, base units, anything near a bathroom or terrace door | More expensive, and the edge needs covering for a clean look |

| Melamine-faced board | Internal shelving, hidden carcass, budget-conscious jobs | Chips at edges, delaminates fast at any water ingress |

| HPL | High-traffic and commercial fronts, laundry, maid's room | Reads flat next to real veneer, limited depth of finish |

| Real wood veneer on MR MDF | Feature fronts, media walls, panelling in stable interiors | Lifts and cracks in unstable humidity, needs sequence matching |

| Solid wood | Frames, handles, small feature elements | Moves across the grain, so a solid slab door will cup here |

Two site types demand different answers, and this is where a specification copied from a Moscow or London project goes wrong.

In a villa near the water, on Palm Jumeirah, Bluewaters or the seafront strip, humidity is higher, salt aerosol reaches interior air, and joinery on external walls faces a temperature differential across the panel. Cold interior air on one side, a wall that has been sitting in 45°C on the other. Condensation forms behind the carcass where nobody looks. We build a ventilated cavity between the back panel and the wall, seal every edge including the ones nobody will see, use marine plywood rather than MDF for anything below 200mm off the floor, and specify stainless or properly coated hardware rather than the standard nickel-plated hinge that will bloom rust in three summers.

In a Business Bay or Marina apartment, the climate inside is stable and the constraints are logistical. Panel size is dictated by the service lift, not by the design. A 2.7-metre full-height door that walks straight into a villa will not fit in most tower service lifts, which means the run is either broken into more panels, with more joints to align, or assembled on site with the finish quality risk that carries. Add the building's permitted working hours, the material delivery slot the owners association allocates, and the protection they require in the corridors. Those rules add days to an install and they belong in the programme from the start.

What a linear metre is made of

Owners compare joinery quotes as single numbers and then wonder why one is half the other. A linear metre of wardrobe is five separate cost lines stacked together.

The carcass is the box: 18mm board, edge treatment, back panel. Melamine chipboard sits at the bottom of the range, MR MDF in the middle, marine ply at the top. This is 20 to 30% of the price and the part clients never see.

The front is where most of the money goes, usually 30 to 45%. Melamine and HPL are the floor. Sprayed lacquer or PU paint on MDF sits in the middle, and the real variable there is the number of coats and whether the doors were sprayed flat in a booth or touched up on site. High-gloss PU and sequence-matched veneer are the top, and veneer gets more expensive again if the grain has to run continuously across a five-door run rather than door by door.

Hardware is 10 to 20% and it is the line owners cut first, wrongly. Blum and Hettich hinges, drawer runners and lift systems cost two to four times a generic equivalent because of the mechanism: integrated soft-close damping, a hinge that adjusts in three axes so a door can be trued after the timber has settled, drawer runners rated in the tens of thousands of open-close cycles with a full load. In this climate the adjustability is the real argument. Panels move seasonally, and a Blum hinge lets us bring a door back into line in ninety seconds on a snagging visit. A cheap fixed hinge means the door stays crooked or gets replaced.

Internal fit-out is the quiet multiplier. An empty box with a rail and three shelves is cheap. The same box with soft-close drawers, a pull-down rail, trouser racks, a jewellery insert with felt lining, glass-fronted shoe shelves and a laundry pull-out can double the metre price on its own.

Lighting is the last line: LED strip in the shelf edge, motion sensors, a driver that has to sit somewhere accessible. Budget for the electrician, because a wardrobe with integrated lighting needs a supply that was planned during first fix.

Roughly, our working bands per linear metre of wardrobe at standard 2.4 to 2.7m height:

• Melamine carcass, melamine or HPL fronts, generic hardware, basic internals: AED 2,500 to 4,000
• MR MDF carcass, sprayed lacquer fronts, Blum or Hettich hardware, drawers and part-fitted internals: AED 4,500 to 7,500
• Marine ply or MR MDF carcass, veneer or high-gloss PU fronts, full internal fit-out, integrated lighting: AED 8,000 to 12,000 and above

Kitchen joinery is quoted the same way but excludes worktop and appliances, which typically add 40 to 60% on top of the carcass and fronts. Media walls and wall panelling are usually priced per square metre of face, because the depth and the internal structure vary too much for a linear rate to mean anything.

From site measurement to snagging

The cycle below is what we run on every joinery package, and the order is not negotiable.

1. 1. Site measurement, after plastering and not before. A measurement taken off a drawing is a guess, because Dubai walls are rarely square and floors are rarely level. We record diagonals, floor variation across the run and out-of-plumb on every wall face.
2. 2. Shop drawings. These are the manufacturing drawings: every panel dimensioned, hardware positions, edge details, scribe allowances, service cut-outs. A shop drawing is what the workshop cuts from and what you sign against. If a contractor cannot produce one, they are measuring and building simultaneously, and the variation lands on you.
3. 3. 3D visuals and material samples. Finish samples get approved physically, under the actual lighting of the room where possible, because lacquer reads differently under 3000K and 4000K.
4. 4. Workshop production. Four to seven weeks from approved shop drawings for a full apartment set. Cutting, edgebanding, spraying and curing. Lacquer needs its cure time, and rushing it produces a finish that marks under a fingernail six months later.
5. 5. Delivery and installation. Two to five days per room set, one to two weeks for a whole apartment. Carcasses go in and get levelled and shimmed first, fronts second, hardware adjusted last.
6. 6. Snagging and handover. A written list, a return visit, and a defects period. Our workmanship carries a one-year warranty, which on joinery mostly means adjusting doors after the first full seasonal cycle.

Joinery survey timing has to sit inside the wider renovation programme, since measurements depend on finished wall positions and tile thickness. How the whole sequence fits together is set out in our Dubai fit-out guide, and on villas the joinery package is typically 15 to 20% of the total contract, which the villa renovation cost breakdown puts in context.

The snagging checklist: what to look at on handover

Walk the joinery with a torch and a tape. These are the defects that show up most often, in order of frequency.

Reveals first. The gap between doors should be identical along the whole run, typically 3mm. If it measures 2mm at one door and 5mm at the next, the carcasses are not plumb or the doors were not adjusted after installation. Sight along the run at eye level and the variation is obvious.

Then levels. Installers shim the boxes to a laser rather than following the floor. If they followed the floor, the doors will drift out of alignment within weeks as the load settles. Check the top line of the run against the ceiling.

Push each sliding door slowly through its full travel and listen. Rubbing, a change in resistance, or a door that drifts back means the top track is out of level. Check that anti-jump devices are fitted, that soft-close works in both directions where specified, and that the bottom track is a design that can actually be cleaned. Dust is not optional here.

Look at the glue line on the door edges. A 0.4mm edgeband with a visible white line will lift at a corner within two summers. We use 2mm ABS with PUR adhesive on anything exposed, which gives a nearly invisible joint and holds in heat.

Under raking light you will see lacquer defects: orange peel texture, dust nibs, colour variation between doors sprayed in the booth and panels touched up on site. Site touch-ups almost never match, which is why filler panels and scribes should be sprayed in the workshop.

Where the joinery meets an out-of-plumb wall or a ceiling, the correct fix is a scribed panel cut to the wall's actual profile. A bead of silicone bridging an 8mm gap is a shortcut, and it will crack.

Last, open every drawer to full extension. Check that soft-close is on the bottom drawers too, not only the ones at eye level. On LED strips, look for visible dots, mismatched colour temperature between runs, and whether the driver can be reached without dismantling the unit.

Adding joinery to a project already under way

Joinery can be added to an existing design package, and it happens often. The cost of adding it late is coordination, not manufacture.

If the electrical first fix is already closed, integrated lighting means chasing walls again. If tiling is complete, floor levels are locked and the plinth detail has to absorb whatever variation exists. If a walk-in closet is being added after MEP sign-off, the AC and sprinkler positions may need revisiting, and in a tower that is an owners association conversation with its own timeline.

Added inside a live contract with a single team, joinery survey runs alongside the wet trades and the workshop is producing while the site is still being finished. Brought in as a separate supplier three months later, the same package adds four to six weeks and a handoff where nobody owns the interface between the wall and the wardrobe. What to check before signing with any contractor is covered in our guide to choosing an interior design company in Dubai.

We fix the quote in the contract before work starts, with no additions once scope is signed, and a daily penalty on our side if we run past the agreed date. Send us the room dimensions and a photo of the space and we will tell you what is realistic before anything is priced: get in touch here.

FAQ

What is the difference between a fitted and a built-in wardrobe?

A fitted wardrobe is made to your room's measured dimensions and scribed to the walls, floor and ceiling, so it sits flush with no gaps or filler strips. A built-in wardrobe fills an existing recess or a stud-framed niche, so only the doors and internal fittings are visible. Both are bespoke; the difference is whether the opening was built for the joinery or the joinery was built for the room.

Which materials suit Dubai's humidity?

Moisture-resistant MDF with fully sealed edges for carcasses and painted fronts, and marine or BWP-grade plywood for anything within 200mm of the floor or near a wet area. Standard MDF and melamine chipboard swell irreversibly at unsealed edges. Real wood veneer looks best but needs stable indoor humidity, so it is a poor choice for a holiday home where the AC gets switched off for weeks at a time.

How long does joinery take from design to installation?

Site measurement and shop drawings take two to three weeks, workshop production four to seven weeks from the moment those drawings are approved, and installation two to five days per room or one to two weeks for a full apartment. Total is typically eight to twelve weeks. Any change to the drawings after production starts restarts part of that clock.

Why do Blum and Hettich systems cost more?

They cost two to four times a generic hinge or runner because of integrated soft-close damping, three-axis adjustment, and load-rated mechanisms tested over tens of thousands of cycles. In this climate the adjustability matters most. Panels move with seasonal humidity, and adjustable hinges let a door be brought back into line during a warranty visit instead of being replaced.

What is a shop drawing and why does it matter?

A shop drawing is the manufacturing drawing for your joinery: every panel dimensioned, hardware positions, edge details, scribe allowances and service cut-outs, drawn from actual site measurements. The workshop cuts from it and you sign against it, so it is the document that decides whether what arrives matches what you agreed. A contractor working without one is measuring and building at the same time, and the resulting variation becomes your problem at handover.

How do I look after lacquered and veneered finishes?

Clean with a damp microfibre cloth and a pH-neutral cleaner, never with solvents, alcohol or abrasive pads, both of which dull lacquer permanently. Keep veneer out of direct sun where possible, since UV will shift the colour unevenly within a year or two. If the property sits empty, leaving the AC on a holding temperature rather than off entirely does more to protect joinery than any polish.