Cheaper Fitted Wardrobes?

[TCruise]

Hi,

I've got an area that requires fitted wardrobes.
1. W2.5m x H2.8m
2. W2.5m x H2.8m
3. W1.5m x H1.7m

This is all in one room.
MDF carcasses and doors.
Preferably shaker style doors.

We'd like two doors in height per wardrobe. A small door at the top for storage, and a larger door below it for the main hanging space. Between the two my wife is obsessed with having a rail to hang items, so the doors cannot butt up against one another.



I've seen IKEA Pax Hacks and had a quote from PaxMan, it was £8k which seemed a lot.

A bespoke service from a carpenter was £14k. Which I just cannot stomach.

I'm keen to get fitted wardrobes but just feel that a hell of a lot.

Grateful for thoughts and ideas for a more cosy effective approach.

Thanks

[curvature]

I fitted a 3m run in our bedroom earlier this year and bought them from Howdens comprising 3 units with 6 doors.

I found the Ikea ones limited in that the shorter version was too short and the taller option too tall which would have meant either compromising on space or a lot of extra work and custom made doors. Our ceilings are around 2.3m

The units from Howdens are relatively new to them and a lot of it has been brought over from their kitchen ranges.

We wanted full height doors with internal drawers and according to the Howdens brochure and quoting system you can only have two drawers but we needed three. So going back to the kitchen reference above all of the hinge drillings for the doors are based around their full height kitchen units where you may have a split door ie for a fridge freezer so the doors have 5 hinges. In realty this over the top so I omitted one set of hinges per door allowing me to fit the third drawer unit.

I also dropped the top shelf so that I could stack two show boxes on top of each other.

Overall material cost was around £3.4k inc VAT.

I didn't have the time to install them myself so used a joiner who also replaced all of the first floor internal doors at the same time.

You do need to know how to get the best from them but I would have no hesitation in using them again.

[scot_aln]

The challenge can be to get the right trade person. Two places ago we found a great joiner/carpenter who happily used Ikea pax as a base and just tailored them over a couple of days. It's a been several years so can't recall numbers but next door paid Sharps to fill the same space. I think that was either double or triple the price.

[JimM169]

curvature said:

I fitted a 3m run in our bedroom earlier this year and bought them from Howdens comprising 3 units with 6 doors.

I found the Ikea ones limited in that the shorter version was too short and the taller option too tall which would have meant either compromising on space or a lot of extra work and custom made doors. Our ceilings are around 2.3m

The units from Howdens are relatively new to them and a lot of it has been brought over from their kitchen ranges.

We wanted full height doors with internal drawers and according to the Howdens brochure and quoting system you can only have two drawers but we needed three. So going back to the kitchen reference above all of the hinge drillings for the doors are based around their full height kitchen units where you may have a split door ie for a fridge freezer so the doors have 5 hinges. In realty this over the top so I omitted one set of hinges per door allowing me to fit the third drawer unit.

I also dropped the top shelf so that I could stack two show boxes on top of each other.

Overall material cost was around £3.4k inc VAT.

I didn't have the time to install them myself so used a joiner who also replaced all of the first floor internal doors at the same time.

You do need to know how to get the best from them but I would have no hesitation in using them again.

Bloody hell, I'm gobsmacked at how much these things cost. £1,100 for a 1m x 2.3m mdf/chipboard box and a couple of doors & drawers seems like a p*sstake to me

[curvature]

JimM169 said:

Bloody hell, I'm gobsmacked at how much these things cost. £1,100 for a 1m x 2.3m mdf/chipboard box and a couple of doors & drawers seems like a p*sstake to me

Nothing is cheap these days. Especially kitchens bedrooms and bathrooms.

My figures included an end panel, plinths and additional infill panels all so that I could a neater install. There was also the additional drawer units.

Ikea are cheaper but they I couldn't configure them how I wanted.

If you think Howdens are expensive you need to check out some of the other companies out there, they can be eye watering!

[JimM169]

curvature said:

Nothing is cheap these days. Especially kitchens bedrooms and bathrooms.

My figures included an end panel, plinths and additional infill panels all so that I could a neater install. There was also the additional drawer units.

Ikea are cheaper but they I couldn't configure them how I wanted.

If you think Howdens are expensive you need to check out some of the other companies out there, they can be eye watering!

Too right, I agree everything is more expensive I just don't understand how these companies get away with charging what they do for what at the end of the day is just a box made from a pretty crappy material. I could probably buy the materials for a single unit for less than £300 so god knows what they get them for and the construction is pretty basic, no craftmanship involved. I appreciate they need to make a profit but the markup on these must be huge

Just to add, there's no snobbery on my behalf, every kitchen, wardrobe etc I've ever bought has been melamined chipboard but it was a while a go and the prices appear to have skyrocketed since then.

[JimM169]

Also out of interest did the Howdens units come ready assembled or flat packed?

[Simon_GH]

I just went down the IKEA Pax routes. They look largely fitted in two of the bedrooms due to the alcoves. From memory they were circa £550 each. Fully fitted would look smarter but these are floor to ceiling so storage isn’t compromised.

[Peterpetrole]

I was also a bit shocked at the prices of stuff like the IKEA system recently.

If you have very defined alcoves do you actually need the carcasses at all? My previous house had nice fitted wardrobes which were effectively just doors and a frame over the whole alcove, I modified the rails and shelves myself to suit my needs (turned it into a high and low rail which was brilliant) and the cost was minimal.

[singlecoil]

If you've got room to handle 8 x 4 sheets of material you could build something yourself. You could get someone else to draw up plans to suit your space and requirements too if that would make it more straightforward.

[TCruise]

Anyone used Fittingly or similar?

Thinking that might (although I'm yet to get a quote) be easier.

[curvature]

JimM169 said:

Also out of interest did the Howdens units come ready assembled or flat packed?

Still flat packed! I think the reason is handling and how you actually get a full height wardrobe up the stairs and into the room.

[Youforreal.]

I had the same, got a quote from a joiner, 12k, 4.2m run and a smaller run with desk @3.8m over all, think they are 2.4m high approx.

Thought that was silly money so approached a cabinet maker that was recommended, he cut all the bits for me, made the doors (22mm thick) and got them sprayed.

I sourced internal drawers and Blum soft close hinges, 5 per door due to weight and built all up myself….all told 5.5k.

Floating shelves from B&Q painted black.

My smaller room for reference, very happy with them.



Interior drawers before doors and plinths fitted

Edited by Youforreal. on Monday 18th November 13:31

[TCruise]

Youforreal. said:

I had the same, got a quote from a joiner, 12k, 4.2m run and a smaller run with desk @3.8m over all, think they are 2.4m high approx.

Thought that was silly money so approached a cabinet maker that was recommended, he cut all the bits for me, made the doors (22mm thick) and got them sprayed.

I sourced internal drawers and Blum soft close hinges, 5 per door due to weight and built all up myself….all told 5.5k.

Floating shelves from B&Q painted black.

My smaller room for reference, very happy with them.



Interior drawers before doors and plinths fitted

Edited by Youforreal. on Monday 18th November 13:31

Thanks.

I've got a quote from Fittingly (https://www.fittingly.co.uk/) basicaly made to measure flatpack, so similar to what your said, and they want £9k and it honestly looks crap
They can't create a cut out for a beam that runs down the wall / The corner wardrobe is terrible in design.

Who did you go to?

Thanks

[Youforreal.]

TCruise said:

Thanks.

I've got a quote from Fittingly (https://www.fittingly.co.uk/) basicaly made to measure flatpack, so similar to what your said, and they want £9k and it honestly looks crap
They can't create a cut out for a beam that runs down the wall / The corner wardrobe is terrible in design.

Who did you go to?

Thanks

I’m in Ireland but got a guy in Northern Ireland to do them, my advice is a small bespoke joiner with a workshop.

The guy that did mine is a one man band with workshop.

[Ganglandboss]

My OH and I ordered some from Larks & Larks. We wanted three 1m wide wardrobes with double doors. Left to right, we have:

• Wardrobe with rail at the top and middle (with shelf above middle rail)
• Full height unit with shelves inside
• Wardrobe with a horizontal divider down the middle, rail top and middle as per the first wardrobe on the left, and top rail on the right, plus a couple of low shelves

For the middle unit with the shelves, we decided to put drawers in the bottom. The drawer packs were quite expensive though, so we got the same, but sold by Ikea for their wardrobes. It was a perfect fit width-wise, but it was too deep. I cut the drawers to make them shorter, but I had to take the router to them to put in a couple of slots to support the backs. I also found one of the drawers fouls on the doors, so I put a little notch in with the router.

I'll try and get some photos later and edit the post.

We were very pleased with the units. They were reasonably priced, and very solid. They sell some standard sized units, but they will let you alter the dimensions. We found the standard widths (1m) were perfect, but we have quite low ceilings upstairs, so we had them reduce the height.

I think it was about £4,000 in total.

[singlecoil]

Thing about wardrobes is that they consume a vast amount of material, and material is expensive, especially since the Ukraine war started. If I was designing a bedroom I would, if at all possible, design it in such a way as to use as much of the structure of the bedroom as possible and put sliding doors, maybe mirrors, in front of the arrangement of drawers, shelves and hanging space.

[Sheepshanks]

singlecoil said:

Thing about wardrobes is that they consume a vast amount of material, and material is expensive, especially since the Ukraine war started. If I was designing a bedroom I would, if at all possible, design it in such a way as to use as much of the structure of the bedroom as possible and put sliding doors, maybe mirrors, in front of the arrangement of drawers, shelves and hanging space.

Just don't do it against a cold wall or all your clothes will go mouldy!

[Peterpetrole]

singlecoil said:

Thing about wardrobes is that they consume a vast amount of material, and material is expensive, especially since the Ukraine war started. If I was designing a bedroom I would, if at all possible, design it in such a way as to use as much of the structure of the bedroom as possible and put sliding doors, maybe mirrors, in front of the arrangement of drawers, shelves and hanging space.

That was my suggestion a few days ago, but seems like most people are committed to making everything a double wall for no reason, very strange.

[Youforreal.]

So slide robes with no back board?