Cabinets, doors, stairs, floors, decking and fences
One carpentry firm for everything made of wood, inside and out. Below you work out in sixty seconds what your job costs, whether you need a permit, whether your stair meets the Bbl and what the timber costs over ten years.
Six steps. You get a guide price with VAT per line, the number of working days, the completion date and, where it applies, a permit verdict, a staircase check and a cutting list.
Amounts include VAT for private clients. Business clients see the same items excluding VAT.
Permit, stair dimensions, ten-year cost and cutting list. Open the one you need.
Under the Environment Act the dimensions sit in the Bbl building decree. Enter your plan. In a protected townscape or on a listed building — Amsterdam inside the Singelgracht — the exemption does not apply.
Almost every failed loft stair fails the same way: the opening is too short, so the stair gets too steep and you hit your head at the top. Enter the floor height and the length of the opening.
The purchase price is half the story. Spruce is cheapest on installation day and dearest after ten years, because you oil it five times and then replace it. Enter your area and compare.
Your calculation produces a list of the timber, sheet material, screws and hardware needed. Useful if you buy it yourself, and checkable if we do. No competitor hands you this before the order.
We are carpenters, not a broker. Everything below is done by our own team, with our own tools and our own workshop for bespoke work.
fitted wardrobe, sliding-door closet, bookcase, TV wall, under-stairs storage
hanging a door, setting a new frame, sliding door
new fixed stair, stair renovation, stairwell opening, loft ladder
joists, joist replacement, subfloor, skirting
suspended ceiling, closing a void, exposed beams
wainscoting, wall panels, new wall, built-in niche
spot repair, sill, full window
garden deck, waterside deck, roof terrace
boundary fence, gate, removal of the old one
roofed veranda, open pergola, bespoke garden house
rebated boards, thermowood, fascia, roof edge
built to measure, or re-clad an existing dormer
You work out the guide price yourself. We see your calculation with the request, so the first conversation is no longer about "roughly how much".
Within two working days. We measure every corner, because no Amsterdam wall is straight. You get a working drawing with dimensions.
Every line separately, with its VAT rate. What is not on the quotation is not invoiced.
Bespoke work is cut and prepared outside your home. Less dust, fewer days of disruption.
Two people, dust screens, covers, tidied every evening. For an owners' association we arrange the notice and the access.
We walk through it with you and list the last points. Shrinkage gaps after one heating season we repair free.
This list and the calculator take their figures from one file and cannot drift apart. Amounts include VAT for private clients, for Amsterdam and an average job.
Carpenter's hourly rate € 75 per uur · For loose work without a fixed price. Travel within Amsterdam is free, outside it € 0.42 per kilometre.
| Item | Unit | Basic | Comfort | Luxury |
|---|
Amounts include VAT for private clients. Business clients see the same items excluding VAT.
These are the dimensions and rates that sink plans. We put them here so you can check them instead of taking our word for it.
| Subject | What applies | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Fence in the back garden | up to 2.00 m without a permit | Bbl, permit-free building |
| Boundary in the front garden | up to 1.00 m without a permit | Bbl — in front of the façade line |
| Canopy or shed in the back garden | max. 30 m² in total and max. 50 % of the back garden | Bbl — ancillary structures |
| Height of an ancillary structure | 4.00 m within 2.5 m of the house · 3.00 m further away · 2.00 m on the boundary | Bbl |
| Dormer on the rear roof plane | height max. 1.75 m · 0.50 m below the ridge · 0.50 m from the sides · 0.50–1.00 m above the eaves · flat roof | Bbl — the front roof plane always needs a permit |
| Stair in a dwelling, new-build level | going ≥ 22 cm · riser ≤ 18.8 cm · width ≥ 80 cm | Bbl / NEN 3509 |
| Free headroom above the stair | 2.30 m new build · 1.90 m existing building | Bbl |
| VAT on carpentry | 21 % — carpentry is not on the reduced-rate list | Tax authority, work on dwellings |
| VAT on insulating | 9 % on labour, home older than 2 years; material 21 % | Tax authority, insulating dwellings |
| VAT on painting and plastering | 9 % including material, home older than 2 years | Tax authority |
| Flat with an owners' association | work on communal parts and on the exterior needs the meeting's consent | Model regulations / deed of division |
| Listed building or protected townscape | exemptions do not apply; even a rear dormer needs a permit | Heritage Act / Amsterdam environment plan |
None of these seven is non-committal. They are in the order confirmation and you can hold us to them.
We survey ourselves. If the bespoke work does not fit, we make it again — at our cost, not on your invoice.
After the survey the amount is fixed. Extra work only after your written approval, with the price stated.
If handover is late through no fault of yours we pay € 75 per working day, up to € 2,000.
Five years on joist floors, stairs, dormers and outdoor structures; two years on locks and hinges of bespoke furniture.
We bear onto timber or steel and screw into the structure. No adhesive as a load carrier, no filling foam as a bearing.
Dust screens, covers, sawing outdoors where possible. At the end of each day you can use your home.
Timber moves. After one heating season we come back to touch up gaps and sealant, at no charge.
| What you find now | What you get here |
|---|---|
| "Carpenter € 40–65 an hour" and a contact form | A price per item, per unit, with VAT rate and range |
| Lead platforms that resell your details to three firms | Your request reaches one firm: ours |
| Permit questions: "ask your municipality" | A permit check with the decree's own dimensions, right here |
| Stair dimensions only at the survey, once the stair is ordered | Stair check beforehand: treads, riser, headroom, opening needed |
| Choosing timber on today's price per m² | Ten-year cost including maintenance and replacement, per species |
| Dutch only, sometimes English | Eleven languages, including Turkish, Arabic, Polish, Ukrainian, Papiamento and Sranan |
| A cutting list? You never get to see one | A timber list from your own calculation, printable before the order |
What was there, what we did, what it cost and how long it took.
Oud-West. Wall out of true by 3 cm over 2.6 m; every shelf scribed separately. Sprayed MDF, soft-close, LED in the rail.
De Pijp. Old frames cut out, new frames set plumb in a building 1.5 cm out of vertical.
Amstelveen. Oak overlay treads, white risers, anti-slip on the nosing.
Jordaan. Two rotten joist ends carried on steel shoes, plywood subfloor, insulation between the joists.
IJburg roof terrace. Bangkirai on pedestals, edge protection along the rim.
Diemen. Concrete footings, hardwood panels 180 cm, gate on a steel frame.
These six jobs are here with real dimensions and real amounts, but the photographs are still to come. We do not put bought stock images on our own work page.
It is a guide price with a band of about twelve per cent, calculated with our real rates. After the survey we put a fixed price under it. In practice nine out of ten final quotations land inside that band; if one falls outside, we explain what caused it.
Because the tax authority grants the reduced rate only to insulating, painting, plastering and wallpapering a home older than two years. Carpentry is not on that list. If your job also includes insulation or painting, we put those lines at 9 % separately — you see it in the breakdown.
On Sundays and public holidays we double the labour, not the material. It is not a trick: anyone working on a Sunday wants something for it, and we pass that on to our people. Saturday carries 50 %, weekday evenings between 19:00 and 22:00 carry 30 %. We do not work at night.
For loose work we charge by the hour with a two-hour minimum plus travel. Most items in the price list have their own minimum, because loading tools and material takes time even on a small job.
Yes, and then the material part drops out. We do not take on the material guarantee: if the boards warp or the sheet turns out too thin, that is your risk. We say in advance what we will and will not accept.
Yes. For communal parts — stairwells, galleries, frames, roof edges, storage rooms — we deliver a quotation you can put straight to the meeting, with items per unit and a multi-year line. We know how a maintenance plan is read.
Survey within two working days, drawing within three days, production two to three weeks, installation one to two days. Sprayed fronts add a week. So reckon on three to five weeks.
No, and that is exactly the difference from a shop-bought cabinet. We set the carcass plumb and hide the difference behind a scribe fillet. In Amsterdam three centimetres of deviation over two metres is normal; we measure it and allow for it in the cutting plan.
A plumb (stel) frame is a thin frame you set in the wall and finish later with architraves; that is the Dutch standard for interior doors. A solid frame is heavier and sits directly in the masonry. With a plumb frame the door stays a standard size; with a solid one you more often need bespoke.
On the rear or side often yes, if it is no higher than 1.75 m, stays half a metre below the ridge and from the sides, has its underside 0.5 to 1 m above the eaves and a flat roof. On the front, never. In a protected townscape the exemption disappears. Our permit check runs your figures.
Two metres in the back garden, one metre in the front garden, in front of the façade line. Higher is possible with a permit. Mind neighbour law: the boundary is shared, so agreeing with the neighbours saves you a procedure.
On a roof terrace hardwood or composite, because you do not want to be up there with a brush every year and weight per m² matters. In a shaded, damp garden hardwood or thermally modified timber; spruce is finished after eight years. Run it through our ten-year tool — you will see the cheapest timber is rarely the cheapest.
Repairing a joist end with a steel shoe costs a few hundred euro per joist, replacing a whole joist two to three times that, and with a damp crawl space you are talking about the whole floor. We open one spot and measure the moisture; only then does a price go under it. Anyone quoting a total without opening up is guessing.
Yes, with a clear agreement: we supply to size either from our own survey or from your dimensions. If you supply the dimensions, the measurement guarantee is yours. That is stated on the order.
A fixed core and a network of self-employed tradesmen we have worked with for years. You have one contact, and whoever turns up knows what was agreed.
We saw in the workshop or outdoors as much as possible. Indoors we use dust screens, extraction on the machine and floor covers. Swept clean every evening. For an owners' association we put a note in the entrance with the days and times.
On jobs above € 2,500 we work with 30 % on order, 40 % at the start of installation and 30 % after handover. Below that, one invoice after handover. We never ask more than a third up front.
Yes. Hanging one door is about an hour's work and it is in the price list. We try to bundle small jobs into one trip, which is cheaper for you too.
For small jobs usually within a week. For bespoke work it depends on production. If you are in a hurry there is a 35 % labour surcharge and we free someone up within five working days.
Your request goes to our own system, to our WhatsApp and to info@toprenovatie.nl. We resell nothing to brokers. Within two working hours you get a reply from a person, not an automated acknowledgement.
What you worked out above travels with the request. That way our first answer is about your job and not about generalities. You will hear from us within two working hours.
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