Custom Cabinets near you

SafeWork NSW's public notice is unambiguous: the use, supply and manufacture of engineered stone benchtops, panels and slabs was prohibited from 1 July 2024. The prohibition was agreed nationally, so it is not a state quirk, and it applies to the product category rather than to a particular brand or colour. Engineered stone products with trace levels of crystalline silica, described as less than one per cent by weight, are exempted.

Two carve-outs exist and both are narrow. A transitional period covered contracts for the installation of engineered stone benchtops, panels and slabs entered on or before 31 December 2023 where the installation was completed by 31 December 2024, which has now passed. Separately, exceptions apply to the removal, repair, minor modification and disposal of engineered stone installed before the prohibition, which the regulators call legacy products. Those exceptions exist so that an existing kitchen can be maintained and eventually taken out safely; they are not a route to a new engineered stone benchtop.

For a homeowner commissioning custom cabinetry today, the practical effect is that the benchtop conversation begins with what may lawfully be made. If a supplier offers to fabricate an engineered stone top for a new kitchen, that is a reason to walk away rather than to negotiate.

Silica is the reason the stone prohibition exists, but timber dust carries its own duties and they apply every day in a joinery shop. WorkSafe Victoria classifies wood dust as carcinogenic to humans and sets exposure standards of 5 milligrams per cubic metre as an eight-hour time weighted average for softwood dust, with a short-term limit of 10 milligrams per cubic metre, and 1 milligram per cubic metre for certain hardwood dusts such as beech and oak. Sanding MDF generates more dust than sawing it, and formaldehyde from reconstituted board has its own exposure standard.

A workshop that has thought about this looks different from one that has not. Extraction is plumbed to the machines rather than bolted on, the panel saw and the sander are not surrounded by drifts, and the finishing area is separated from the machining area. It is reasonable to ask to see the workshop before you commission anything from it, and a maker confident in their setup will say yes.

Making cabinetry in a workshop and installing it in a house are treated as different activities in most Australian licensing systems, and the installation side is the regulated one. Queensland's approach is instructive: the QBCC carpentry trade licence covers installing windows, doors, ceilings, subfloors, flooring, stairs and interior linings and fixing internal linings, panelling and mouldings, while joinery is licensed separately. The point is that the class matters and the classes are not interchangeable.

The exclusions are just as important as the inclusions. The QBCC carpentry class expressly excludes plumbing and drainage, gasfitting, fire protection, termite management and mechanical services, and does not allow them to be picked up as incidental work. A custom kitchen touches all of those, so ask who is doing each connection and see that person's licence rather than assuming the cabinetmaker covers it.

Thresholds and categories differ across the federation. New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia each run their own building work contractor registration with their own value triggers. Look the business up on the register in your own state before the deposit, because a made-to-order product is the hardest thing to unwind.