Carpenter · Abermain, NSW
Built-in robes that look like the house came that way.
I'm Lenny. I build robes, shelving and fit-out carpentry into Hunter Valley houses. Most of them haven't got a square wall in them. You get the price in writing before anything gets cut, and your room back clean.
Before you ring anyone
The robe isn't the worry. The bloke is.
You already know how it goes wrong, because everyone's heard a version of it. Deposit paid and then the phone stops getting answered. Or he's there two days, gone three weeks, and the room sits full of tools while you're living out of a laundry basket.
I can't do anything about the last bloke. What I can do is put the whole thing in front of you in order, before you've paid me anything. It's written out further down. If I ever go off it, ring me and say so.
In their words
This one came from someone who'd already been burned by a carpenter.
After being severely burnt by a Carpenter in 2025, I was extremely hesitant about good money chasing bad!! My expectations have been blown out of the water with Lenny, who is a master of his trade. His work ethic, availability, honesty, pricing, and genuine love of his profession are outstanding. I would not hesitate in recommending his workmanship & will continue to utilise his business. A true old-fashioned tradie whose goal is to satisfy his customers and provide top quality workmanship.
You're a credit to your trade, son!!
Ring him and describe the wall.
The work
Robes, shelving, and the bits that have to disappear into the house.
Painted white and set out square, with hardware that shuts without a bang. Most of this goes into a room somebody's sleeping in that same night, so it goes in clean.
If it's carpentry and it's inside your house, ask. Worst case I'll tell you it's not my go and give you a name.
How a job goes
What actually happens in your house.
Six things, in this order. Nothing else happens in between.
Costs you ten minutes.
You ring me.
Tell me what's on that wall now and what you want there instead. If I don't pick up it's because I'm on the tools. Leave your suburb and I'll ring you back.
Costs you twenty minutes at home.
I come and look at the wall.
Not off a photo. I stand in the room with a level and a tape and find out what the house is actually doing. A lot of these places have settled a fair way since they were built. Better to know that before any timber gets cut than after.
Costs you nothing to read it.
You get the price in writing.
It lists what I'm building, the timber and hardware going into it, and what the whole thing comes to. It also says who strips the old robe out, who patches the wall, who paints it and who takes the rubbish away. Every one of those has a name against it before you agree to anything. If the wall turns out to be out of square once I'm into it, that's my problem to sort, not another invoice on top. Take as long as you want reading it. I won't be ringing you every week asking.
Costs you being home to let me in.
I turn up and start.
You get a start date and I turn up on it, not three weeks after it. First morning is the old robe out and the wall stripped back so I can see what I'm working with. What I'm not doing is finishing off someone else's job while yours sits waiting.
Costs you the use of one room.
I'm in your house, one room at a time.
Door shut on the room I'm in, so the rest of the house carries on as normal. You'll know what time I'm getting there each day. Before I call it finished you open every door and pull every drawer yourself, with me still standing there. Anything catching or sitting proud gets sorted then and there.
Costs you nothing. The mess is mine.
I clean up and go.
Offcuts go in the ute, the dust gets vacuumed up, and the floor gets done properly. The room goes back the way it was, minus the wall you didn't like. Nobody rings a rubbish bloke after I've been.
Other jobs, other rooms
Other people who've had me in their house.
We had one of those freestanding wardrobes that slowly takes over the corner of the room. Lenny came and measured on the Tuesday and I had the price that night. It didn't change afterwards. Every door on it still shuts properly, which sounds like nothing until you've lived with the kind that don't.
Kylie · Kurri Kurri · Built-in robe, main bedroom
Rang him about a wardrobe and came away with the hallway shelves done as well. He told me straight which bits weren't worth spending money on, which I wasn't expecting. Fifties house and nothing in it runs true, but you can't tell where he's had to fudge it. Happy with the lot of it.
Dave · Cessnock · Robe in the spare room, shelving in the hallway
Tidy worker. Sheets down the whole time and swept up every arvo before he left, and with a two year old crawling round the floor that mattered to me more than the shelves did.
Sharon · Weston · Fitted corner shelving, lounge room
Posts had rotted out at the base and I'd put it off for about two years. He replaced them and matched the boards in so close you have to know where to look for the join. Turned up on the day and at the time he said he would.
Mick · Maitland · Front verandah posts and weatherboard repairs
Small job and he didn't treat it like a small job. In and out in a day. Have already given his number to two people.
Trace · Abermain · Robe in the kids' room
Lenny
What's left after I drive off.
I'm a chippy out of Abermain. What I do is the inside of people's houses. Robes, shelving, fit-out work. Mostly for people who've got one wall in the house that's been annoying them for years.
There's no showroom and there's no sales bloke. You ring the number, you get me. That's the whole business, which is also why I only take on what I can actually get finished.
The bit I care about is the last hour. Every door swinging even, nothing catching, and the floor clean enough that you'd sit on it. Then I open the window and go.
The number rings my phone, not an office.
What you can hold me to.
I turn up on the day I said I would. If something goes wrong at my end, you hear it from me before you're standing there wondering.
The price I write down is the price you pay, and it only moves if you change what's being built.
I work on my own. Nobody you haven't met walks into your house.
Sheets go down before the first cut and they stay down until the mess leaves with me.
If I've got something wrong, I come back and fix it, and you don't pay twice for my mistake.
This number still works after you've paid me. Use it if anything ever moves.
Tickets and cover
What I hold.
Numbers to be added.
The numbers go on your written quote. Want to see them before that, just ask.
- Certificate III in Carpentry (CPC30220)
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- NSW Fair Trading contractor licence
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- SafeWork NSW White Card
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- Working at heights
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- Asbestos awareness
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- Public liability cover
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- ABN
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Abermain, NSW
Doors that shut soft and a floor you can walk on barefoot.
One bloke, and a price you agreed to before anything got cut.
The slower way
After hours, send it here.
Name, suburb, and what the room needs. I read these of a morning. The phone's still quicker.
- Phone
- 0402 106 804
- Based in
- Abermain, NSW 2326
Abermain · Cessnock · Kurri Kurri · Weston · Maitland