Wardrobes, Lofts and Joinery: The Defects Worth Listing at Handover
Shutter alignment, soft-close hardware, edge banding and internals — how fitted joinery fails in a new flat and what a reasonable fix looks like.
Updated · 5 min read · by HomeGyan certified engineers
The short answer
- Judge shutters as a set, not one at a time. Gaps should be even and the shutter faces should sit in one plane — a single door that stands proud reads as poor work even when every individual gap is within tolerance.
- Edge banding is where fitted joinery fails first. Any edge that will meet moisture — near a bathroom wall, at the floor, around a basin — needs to be sealed, and a lifting edge at handover will only get worse.
- Open every drawer to its stop and load a shelf with something heavy. Runners that bind and shelves that visibly sag under normal weight are defects now, not wear later.
- Check the carcass grade against what was specified. In India that means IS 303 for general plywood — MR grade is moisture resistant and suits a dry bedroom, BWR is boiling water resistant — and IS 710 for BWP marine grade where there is real exposure. Substituting MR where BWR was promised is invisible once the panel is laminated and is the single most common quiet downgrade in fitted joinery.
- Bangalore is humid for a long stretch of the year, and a wardrobe on an external or bathroom-adjacent wall lives through months of it. That is why the grade and the edge sealing matter more here than the specification sheet suggests — the failure is seasonal, so it appears in the first monsoon rather than in the first week.
- A loft is only storage if you can reach it safely and the shutters stay shut. Lofts with no fixing for a ladder and doors that swing open are common and worth listing.
Shutters and hardware
Most shutter complaints are hinge adjustment rather than manufacture. Cup hinges adjust in three directions, so a competent carpenter can usually correct alignment in an afternoon. Insist on adjustment before accepting an offer to replace a shutter — replacement often introduces a shade mismatch that is harder to live with than the original gap.
- Even gaps between shutters, top to bottom, and consistent across the run.
- Shutter faces flush with each other when closed — sight along them from the side.
- Soft-close hinges and runners actually closing softly, not slamming the last centimetre.
- Handles aligned to a common line and fixed into the shutter, not just the laminate.
- Mirror shutters backed and secured, with a safety film where specified.
Carcass, edges and finish
Look at the edges, not the faces. Edge banding that is lifting, missing on internal edges, or applied over a rough substrate is the clearest indicator of how the unit was made. Any unsealed edge sitting near a wet area will swell, and once a board has swollen the only real fix is replacement.
Check the back panel is fixed properly rather than pinned loosely, and that the unit is scribed to the wall rather than leaving a gap filled with sealant. Where veneer or polish has been used, look across the surface in raking light for patchiness and sanding marks — polish defects are much easier to see at an angle than head-on.
Internals that get skipped
- Shelves at the specified thickness, not a grade thinner, and supported against sag.
- Hanging rods at a height that takes a full-length garment, fixed at both ends.
- Drawers running the full extension they were sold as.
- Locks, where specified, actually fitted and keyed.
- A vent or gap where a wardrobe sits against an external wall, so trapped air does not condense.
Lofts and high storage
Loft shutters carry their own weight against gravity, so the hardware matters more than it does at eye level. Check that they hold open where they are meant to, and stay shut where they are not. Flap-stay hardware that has been under-specified will sag within months.
Check what is above the loft. A loft slab that forms the underside of a terrace or a bathroom will show up any waterproofing failure above it long before the rest of the room does, so look for staining inside the loft specifically — it is one of the more useful early-warning places in the whole flat.
Whether it is the builder's problem at all
A good number of Bangalore projects hand over bedrooms as a bare shell, with wardrobes left to the buyer. Establish which you have before you raise anything: joinery you commissioned yourself sits with your carpenter and your contract, not with the builder.
Where wardrobes, lofts and vanities were part of the agreement, they are as much a part of the flat as the flooring, and the RERA defect liability period covers them on the same footing. That makes the specification sheet the document that matters — "wardrobes provided" without a grade, a finish and a hardware make attached is very hard to enforce afterwards, so it is worth pinning down while the flat is still being handed over.
What a reasonable fix looks like
Alignment, hinge and runner faults are adjustments and should be done in place. Lifting edge banding is re-banded, not glued back. A swollen or delaminated panel is replaced, because nothing else lasts. Polish and veneer defects are re-finished on site where the area is small, and the panel is replaced where it is not.
Record each item with a photo and the room it is in. Joinery snags are numerous and individually minor, which is exactly why they get lost between the list and the carpenter — a captioned photo per defect is what makes them fixable.
Frequently asked questions
The builder says a gap between wardrobe shutters is normal. Is it?
A consistent, deliberate shadow gap is normal and is part of the design. An inconsistent gap that widens down the height of the shutter is not — that is alignment, and it is adjustable. The distinguishing question is whether the gap is even, not whether it exists.
How do I tell what plywood was actually used?
Look at exposed edges inside the carcass and in the drawer boxes, where the IS 303 or IS 710 grade stamp is sometimes still visible, and check the core for gaps and voids. If the specification promised BWR or marine grade near a wet area and you cannot evidence it, raise it as a specification query rather than a workmanship defect — the remedy is contractual, not carpentry.
The wardrobe smells musty and the back panel is damp. What is happening?
Almost always the wall behind it, not the wardrobe. A unit fixed hard against an external or bathroom-adjacent wall traps air, and in the Bangalore monsoon any moisture coming through that wall has nowhere to go. Pull the unit off the wall if you can and check the plaster behind it — if the wall is damp, this belongs with the dampness findings and fixing the wardrobe alone will not hold.
Should wardrobes be part of the snag list at all if they are builder-fitted?
Yes. Anything the builder supplied as part of the flat is within scope, joinery included. The reason it is worth listing carefully is that fitted joinery has more individual failure points than almost anything else in the flat, and it is the category most likely to be signed off unexamined.
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