Custom millwork fails in predictable ways: a panel that cannot make the turn in the stairwell, a run that assumes a wall is straight, a reveal that disappears once the floor is levelled.
What a shop drawing has to resolve
- Real field dimensions, not design dimensions
- Grain direction and seam locations across adjacent panels
- Scribe allowances for walls, floors and ceilings that are out of true
- Access path from the truck to the final position
- Hardware, clearances and how the piece comes apart if it ever must
Field measurement is not optional
Design drawings describe the intended building. Shop drawings describe the actual one. On a renovation those differ by half an inch somewhere, and half an inch is the difference between a tight scribe and a visible gap.
The review that prevents remakes
Before anything is cut, the set gets read against three things: the architectural plan, the MEP layout and the site conditions. Outlets inside a cabinet run, a sprinkler head where a valance goes, a radiator behind a bookcase — all cheap to catch on paper and expensive to catch in a finished room.
Millwork is the most visible work in a finished space. It earns its reputation in a drawing set nobody sees.