Custom built-ins fitted to the wall.

Measured to the room, not to a catalog

A built-in earns its place when a stock bookcase would leave a gap at the ceiling and another at the baseboard. We measure the wall, including the parts that are out of plumb — and in houses from the 1920s through the 1970s, something is always out of plumb. The scribe, the filler, and the crown are the job. The shelves are the easy part.

The sequence is short. We look at what the wall is holding: a fireplace, a window, a stair stringer, a chimney breast. We draw the piece at the height you can reach and the depth that will not steal the walkway. In a narrow Lemont living room that depth might be ten inches. In a Naperville family room it can be a real cabinet with doors. You approve the drawing. Then we build it and fit it.

If the project is really a kitchen, we will say so. A built-in is the right call when the room is fine and one wall is not.

What we build

• Fireplace surrounds, mantels, and the cabinets beside them
• Bookcases and window seats with storage under the cushion
• Mudroom lockers, benches, and the hooks lined up with the studs
• Under-stair display, including glass-front niches for bottles and glasses
• Wardrobe walls where a bedroom closet was never deep enough
• Trim and scribe so the piece meets the floor and the ceiling you have

We do not come out to assemble a flat-pack unit, and we do not repair a loose shelf on a bookcase you bought elsewhere. The work is millwork we build and install.

How big the piece usually is

Sometimes the answer is one window seat. Sometimes it is a wall from corner to corner, with a ladder if the ceiling is tall. What we push back on is a unit so deep that the sofa no longer fits. Storage that ruins the room is not storage.

Mudrooms are their own scale. The bench has to clear the door from the garage, the lockers have to take a coat without swallowing the walk, and the shoe shelf has to be a height a child will actually use. We have fitted those in Montgomery and Oswego houses where the builder left a drywall box and called it a mudroom.

Wood, paint, and the fireplace you already have

Most pieces are hardwood or a paint-grade wood, finished to sit next to your existing trim. If the house has oak casings, a sudden maple stain will shout. If the house is painted throughout, a built-in in the same sheen disappears, which is usually what you want — until you decide the fireplace wall should be the one surface with visible grain. We will argue for one of those, not both.

Around a fireplace we follow the masonry. The mantel height is set by the opening and by the tile or stone you choose, not by a standard from a different house. Shelves stop where the heat says they should. Glass doors, if you want them under the stair or beside the fire, are fitted so the arch or the square is true.

REIJ has built this millwork since 2002, from Montgomery. There is no showroom address. We come to the wall. The first conversation is free.

Questions about built-ins