How many projects should a joinery gallery show?

A manageable number of projects is as a rule enough (project experience), provided each project makes a point of its own and the furniture types the business actually offers are covered. What matters is not the quantity but completeness per project: an overall shot, two or three details, the fitting situation and a material line. Forty single pictures with no grouping read less convincingly than eight worked-through projects, because the viewer is missing the order.

Does the timber have to be stated under every picture?

It should stand under every project, not necessarily under every single picture. One material line per project with timber, construction, finish, handle type and the structural particularity is enough. It helps twice over: the enquirer places themselves and asks more concrete questions, and the site thereby contains the vocabulary people actually search for. Details that can no longer be reliably reconstructed do not belong in that line; in that case it is better to leave the project out.

Should a joinery state prices on its website?

A from-to range per furniture type makes sense, a fixed price as a rule does not. The range places the expectation and filters out enquiries that would fail at the measuring appointment anyway. The wording matters: name the reference size, name the three factors that move the range — dimensions, timber and the extent of the fittings — and state expressly that the binding price only arises after the measure. Price presentations should be checked professionally before publication.

Are phone photographs enough for a project gallery?

For the majority of projects yes, provided a few basic rules are kept: daylight rather than flash, a tidied crop, camera at the height of the piece, every subject once in landscape and once in portrait. For the lead shot of a particularly demanding piece a professional photograph can be worthwhile. The difference between a usable and an unusable phone shot lies almost always in the preparation, not in the camera.

Do I need permission to show furniture inside private homes?

Publishing shots from someone else's home should rest on the clients' permission, sensibly in writing and already settled in the order or the order confirmation. People, name plates, house numbers and personal belongings belong outside the crop. The permission has to remain revocable, and it should be laid down who then removes the pictures. For a specific case, the legal assessment remains a matter for qualified advice.

How often does a project gallery have to be updated?

A few new projects a year keep a gallery alive without turning it into a standing task (project experience). It is sensible to take the shots directly after installation, while the piece is clean and the room empty, and to note the material line in the same pass. Older projects whose execution no longer reflects the current standard of the business should give way rather than lengthen the gallery.

Websites for joineries: the picture sells

In hardly any trade does the commission hang on the picture as much as in joinery. Someone who needs a heating system calls because the house stays cold. Someone looking for a fitted wardrobe under a sloping ceiling first wants to see what is possible — and whether the business meant to build it has built something like it before. The text on the website explains the trade; the picture decides whether anyone dials the number. This is exactly where many joineries give away the lead they already hold at the bench: the gallery shows twelve shots in no order, with no note of timber or finish, and no hint of what about them was made to measure. This article works through how to build a project gallery that makes bespoke work visible, why material and finish belong under every picture, how price ranges for fitted furniture can be named without committing to a figure, and why the on-site measure is the real moment of sale that the whole site should be working towards.

Key takeaways

A project gallery only carries weight once each project appears as one unit: an overall shot, two or three detail shots and a line naming timber, finish and the fitting situation.
89 percent (Bitkom 2025) of skilled trade businesses report that customers expect individual offers. A gallery of interchangeable furniture pictures does not meet that expectation.
Timber, finish and handle type belong under every project as a caption. Anyone reading „solid oak, oiled, milled grip rail“ places themselves and asks different questions on the phone.
Price ranges for fitted furniture can be named without committing: a from-to range per furniture type plus the three factors that move it — dimensions, timber and the extent of the fittings.
87 percent (Bitkom 2025) of businesses observe markedly greater price sensitivity. A site with no order of magnitude at all invites precisely the enquiries that fail at the measuring appointment.
The on-site measure is the moment of sale, not the form. The website's job is to settle enough beforehand that the appointment starts with sample pieces rather than questions of principle.

Why the picture comes before the text in joinery

Someone looking for a joinery is rarely looking for a service; they are looking for a result. The sloping ceiling in the bedroom, the alcove beside the fireplace, the kitchen that does not work out anywhere on the floor plan: these are not catalogue items, they are situations. The person searching has no vocabulary for them. They do not know whether they need a fitted wardrobe, a freestanding cabinet or a false wall, and they do not necessarily know the difference between veneered and solid. What they can do is recognise: in a picture they see within two seconds whether their own situation is there. That is why the decision in joinery begins not in the service description but in the gallery — and everything that follows in text only confirms or contradicts that first impression.

Having a website is long since no differentiator. 94 percent (Bitkom 2025) of skilled trade businesses run their own website. Having one sets nobody apart; the difference arises one level down, in what is actually to be seen there. Two joineries in the same district can both have a tidy site and still come across completely differently: one shows eight shots with no connection between them, the other six projects with timber, finish and fitting situation. The second receives enquiries that already state what the job is. The first receives calls that start from zero.

On top of that, expectations have risen. 74 percent (Bitkom 2025) of businesses find that customers have become more critical. They compare several businesses before calling one, and they do it in the evening on a phone. In that comparison it is not the prettiest site that wins but the most informative one. What such a structure looks like for this trade is shown by the layout draft for joineries; further drafts for other trades are set out under our services.

What a visitor wants answered in the first few seconds

Three questions decide whether anyone reads on. Does this business build something like what I have in mind? Does the work look bespoke or bought in? And is the business close enough for the journey to be worthwhile? All three can be answered with pictures and three lines of text, without anyone reading a service description.

Catalogue goods or bespoke work: what the picture gives away

The most important difference in a joinery photograph is not the image quality but the crop. A kitchen run shot head-on against a white wall looks like every other kitchen run; it could have come from a brochure, and that is how it reads. The same kitchen, shot so that the slope above the worktop, the offset at the window reveal and the mitred junction with the wall are all in frame, tells another story: somebody measured, calculated and adapted here. Bespoke work is recognised at exactly the points where mass-produced furniture fails.

89 percent (Bitkom 2025) of skilled trade businesses report that customers expect individual offers. In joinery that expectation is not abstract but very concrete: whoever commissions a joinery instead of buying from a furniture store is paying precisely for the departure from the standard. If the gallery does not show that departure, the business has to explain it in conversation — and until then competes with the price level of mass-produced goods. The picture is therefore not decoration but the argument that carries the price difference.

Subject	Reads as catalogue goods	Shows bespoke work
Fitted wardrobe	Front head-on, straight wall, cut out	Junction with sloping ceiling and skirting in frame
Kitchen	Overall shot from the middle of the room	Corner detail, offset, mitre at the window
Staircase	View from below, tidy but interchangeable	First step, wall junction, transition to the handrail
Internal door	Closed door in a white wall	Lining junction with a period wall and its adjustment
Washbasin unit	Furniture alone against a neutral background	Cut-out for the basin, pipe routing, joint pattern
Shop fitting	Wide angle of the whole room	Detail of edge, fitting and joint

The project gallery: one project is one unit

The most common weakness of a joinery gallery is not too little material but too little order. Forty shots in an endless grid are not a portfolio but an archive. Anyone clicking through them sees nothing after the twelfth picture because the grouping is missing: do these three shots belong to one commission or to three different ones? A gallery becomes legible the moment it is divided into projects. The project is the unit the customer thinks in, not the single picture.

A project consists of a lead shot, two or three detail shots and a short description. The lead shot stands in the overview, the details appear only once somebody opens the project. That keeps the overview calm and makes the click worthwhile. A manageable number of projects is as a rule enough for a convincing gallery (project experience); more dilutes rather than impresses, as long as not every project makes a point of its own.

The sorting matters too, and not chronologically but by furniture type: fitted wardrobes, kitchens, staircases, internal doors, commercial fit-out. Someone looking for a dressing room does not want to scroll past three shop-fitting projects. A filter bar above the gallery with a few categories is enough; more filters produce empty results and read worse than none at all. How usable shots can be taken with a phone is covered among our services.

Lead shot

One picture per project showing the situation: the piece in the room, with its junction to wall, ceiling or slope. It stands alone in the overview and has to work without a caption.

Detail shots

Two or three crops of edge, fitting, joint or surface. They answer the question of workmanship that an overall view can never answer.

Fitting situation

The point where the piece meets the existing fabric: skirting, ceiling transition, out-of-true wall. This shot is what separates bespoke work from bought furniture.

Material line

Timber, construction, finish and handle type in one sentence under the picture. Written plainly, without marketing language and without manufacturer names for fittings or lacquers.

Furniture type as filter

A few categories above the gallery matching the furniture types. They replace scrolling with a choice and lead on to the matching service page.

Price range at the project

A note on the order of magnitude for that furniture type, tied to the statement that the binding price only arises after the on-site measure.

Material and finish belong under every picture

A caption in joinery is not a picture title but a material statement. „Fitted wardrobe, hallway“ says nothing. „Fitted wardrobe in the hallway, solid oak, oiled, milled grip rail, height adjustment to the period ceiling“ says almost everything: timber, finish, handle concept and the structural particularity. Anyone reading that can place themselves. They know whether this business is the right one before picking up the phone, and they ask different questions on the call than someone who has only seen a picture.

The second reason for the material line is search. Anyone searching for „fitted wardrobe oak oiled sloping ceiling“ is searching for words that appear nowhere on most joinery sites, because those sites hold nothing but pictures. Captions are the only place where this vocabulary appears naturally, without the text feeling forced. They therefore do double duty: orientation for the reader, content for search. What else comes together on such a site is set out among our services.

Keep the statements plain. No marketing language, no adjectives, no manufacturer names for fittings, boards or lacquers. Timber, construction, finish, particularity — in that order, in one short sentence. Where a reliable detail can no longer be reconstructed because the job is ten years old, it is better to leave the project out than to invent a detail. A wrong timber in the caption comes to light at the measuring appointment at the latest and costs more trust than the picture had earned.

Name timber and construction: solid oak, walnut veneer, laminated ash
State the finish: oiled, waxed, lacquered, stained, brushed
Name the handle and opening type: milled grip rail, finger pull, push-to-open fitting
Add the structural particularity: sloping ceiling, offset, height adjustment, curve
Add room and use: hallway, dressing room, practice reception, shop counter
Use no manufacturer names for fittings, boards or lacquers
Invent no detail that can no longer be reliably reconstructed

How many pictures one project carries

A handful of shots per project is a good guide (project experience): one overall shot, several details, one shot of the fitting situation and, where available, a before picture. Fewer reads thin, more tires. What matters is not the number but that each shot answers a different question. Two pictures of the same front from two metres away answer the same question twice and therefore count as one.

The before picture is underrated in joinery. The empty alcove, the out-of-true wall, the unused space under the slope: only in comparison does it become visible what the bespoke work achieved. What matters is that both shots were taken from the same standpoint, otherwise the comparison looks staged. A before picture from a phone is entirely sufficient; it does not have to be beautiful, it has to show the same spot.

The one shot that is almost always missing

In nearly every joinery gallery the picture of the fitting situation is missing: the point where the piece meets the existing fabric. Wall junction, skirting, ceiling transition, cable outlet. That is exactly where it is decided whether somebody sees bespoke work or a piece of furniture that could just as well have been bought. This one shot costs thirty seconds on site and carries more in the gallery than any further overall view.

A piece of furniture in an empty room is a product. The same piece at its junction with an out-of-true period wall is a proof.

Guiding principle for project photography in joinery

Naming price ranges for fitted furniture without committing

The question of price comes up earlier in joinery than in almost any other trade, because the range is so wide. A fitted wardrobe can sit at an order of magnitude that is a multiple of another, depending on dimensions, timber, extent of fittings and fitting situation. Saying nothing at all about this on the website brings enquiries from across the whole spectrum, and measuring appointments spent with people whose expectation is out by several times over.

87 percent (Bitkom 2025) of skilled trade businesses observe markedly greater price sensitivity. That does not argue against naming orders of magnitude; it argues for it. A price range with a clear condition attached is not an offer and does not bind, it is an aid to orientation. Whoever reads it and clicks on has qualified themselves. Whoever reads it and leaves would as a rule not have turned the appointment into a commission anyway. Both save time, and on both sides.

The form is decisive: a from-to range per furniture type, plus the three factors that move it. Something like: fitted wardrobes usually sit within a particular range, depending on width and height, on the timber, and on whether drawers, pull-outs or only fixed shelves are built in. No fixed price, no promise, no deadline. Alongside it a sentence making clear that the binding price only arises after the measure. What such a presentation can look like is shown by our own pricing overview.

What a price statement must not be

A range on the website is orientation, not an offer. Say so explicitly: the reference size, the date of the statement and the note that the binding price arises after the measure. Avoid promises about delivery times or fixed prices without a basis. In case of doubt, the price presentation should be checked professionally before publication.

Statement on the site	Effect on the enquirer	Consequence for the business
No price at all	Assumption of a top price, or an immediate call	Many appointments that do not fit
A from price with no condition	Read as an upper limit, not a lower one	Discussion at the measuring appointment
From-to range per furniture type	Places the enquirer's own expectation	Enquiries sit closer to reality
Price per metre or square metre	Gets extrapolated to the enquirer's own dimensions	An expectation forms without a measure
Range plus three price factors	Explains why the range is wide	Conversation starts with scope, not price
Range plus a note on the measure	Makes the appointment the next step	An appointment instead of a price negotiation

The on-site measure is the real moment of sale

No form and no text sells a piece of fitted furniture. The sale happens at the measure, because that is where the actual wall, the actual layout and the actual material are discussed for the first time. Everything the website does beforehand has one aim: that this appointment comes about, and that it does not start with questions of principle. A gallery with material lines and an honest price range do exactly that, before anyone gets into a van.

That is why the page should call the measuring appointment by its name, instead of writing „contact“ or „enquiry“ above it. „Book an on-site measure“ describes an action the enquirer understands and that carries no consequence for them. Add in one sentence what happens, how long it takes and whether it costs anything. Someone who knows that a person will come by with sample pieces and a folding rule, and that a quotation follows, says yes more readily than someone facing an empty contact form.

Step 1

The gallery opens the way in

The enquirer finds a project resembling their own situation and reads timber, finish and fitting situation in the caption. That gives them a vocabulary they did not have before, and an idea of what is possible.

What the gallery has to deliver technically

An image gallery is the heaviest page on a joinery website and is nearly always opened on a phone. If unprocessed shots straight from the camera sit there, the build-up is noticeable and some visitors are gone before the first picture appears. A load time target under 2.5 seconds for the largest visible content is achievable, but it requires every picture to be served in several sizes with the browser choosing the right one.

Operability matters just as much. Pictures have to enlarge without opening a window that cannot be closed again. Swiping should work, but should not be the only option. And every shot needs alternative text describing what is to be seen: not „picture 3“ but „fitted wardrobe under the sloping ceiling, oiled oak“. That helps search, speech output and the case where a picture fails to load.

Serve every picture in several widths and leave the choice to the browser
Load pictures below the visible area only once they are needed
Set fixed width and height so the page does not jump while loading
Enlargement with a visible close, keyboard operation and a return to the right position
Alternative text describing the piece and the situation rather than numbering through
Use meaningful file names: fitted-wardrobe-sloping-ceiling-oak instead of a camera number

Image rights and obligations around project photographs

Shots from private homes are more sensitive than shots from a building site. Anyone photographing inside someone else's home and publishing the pictures needs the clients' permission, ideally in writing, kept short, and settled in the order or the order confirmation. Visible people, family photographs on the wall, name plates and house numbers belong either outside the crop or obscured. The permission has to be revocable; record who removes the pictures in that case and within what period.

On accessibility it is worth looking at the German Accessibility Strengthening Act. Micro-enterprises within the meaning of the act — fewer than ten people, at most 2 million euros (BFSG) annual turnover or balance sheet total — are exempt from the accessibility obligation where services are concerned. That is no licence for a gallery that cannot be operated with a keyboard, however, and it does not exempt anyone from a legal notice and a privacy policy. For a specific case, the assessment remains a matter for qualified advice.

The release belongs in the order

A short paragraph in the order confirmation saves the phone calls later: the business may show shots of the finished piece without people and without an address on its own website and in its own directories, and the release can be revoked informally at any time. Draft that paragraph once and it serves every further commission.

From picture to enquiry: the route across the site

A gallery with no way out is a dead end. At the end of each project belong one sentence and one button: something like this for your rooms? Book an on-site measure. Not only at the foot of the page, but directly beneath the project that convinced the enquirer. The route from enthusiasm to action is short, and it closes again quickly if scrolling has to come first.

A cross-reference from each project to the matching service page and back again helps just as much. Someone landing on the page about fitted wardrobes should see three projects there. Someone opening a fitted-wardrobe project should be able to reach the service page from it. This linking costs nothing but a little care in the build and keeps visitors in the part of the site that is relevant to them at all.

The route by phone belongs visibly alongside it. Some enquirers simply want to call after the third picture, immediately, from the phone in their hand. A tappable number in the header and at the end of each project does more than any additional form field, provided somebody answers or it clearly states within what period a call back follows. Past work and how it is presented is set out under references.

Effort, price and process

The greatest effort in a joinery website lies not in the build but in the picture material. Six to ten projects with five shots each and a material line are a manageable but real piece of work, usually spread over a few weeks because the shots arise alongside running commissions. Whoever has older pictures sorts and supplements them; whoever has none plans the next three installations as photography dates.

The website itself is built at a fixed price from 1,490 euros net, the relaunch of an existing site from 2,900 euros net. Ongoing website maintenance is 49 euros per month and hosting in Germany 15 euros per month, local visibility from 290 euros per month, SEO support from 490 euros per month — each cancellable monthly, with no minimum term. What belongs to the ongoing care of a gallery is set out in the pricing overview and can be discussed via our contact page.

This article is based on data from: Bitkom, Digitalisation of the Skilled Trades — study 2025, together with the German Accessibility Strengthening Act (section 2 no. 17 and section 3 para. 3) and our own project experience from website projects for joineries and other skilled trade businesses in Lower Saxony. The article does not replace legal advice; questions on image rights, price statements and accessibility should be examined professionally in the individual case.