Fitted wardrobes in an attic

MassiveJim said:
I absolutely don't understand where these £3k+ costs come from.
its a wardrobe, how the hell is it so expensive ?

Its just some wood and a day for the joiner/carpenter to come and fit it right ?
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A reasonable sized IKEA unit, non fitted, is easily a grand.
 
MassiveJim said:
I absolutely don't understand where these £3k+ costs come from.
its a wardrobe, how the hell is it so expensive ?

Its just some wood and a day for the joiner/carpenter to come and fit it right ?
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Its bespoke to fit your space perfectly, so its a lot of pre cutting and preparation work on top of the costs of the design visit, survey, fitting and materials.

Theres a lot of companies that would got into 5 figures just for this much work claiming that they are 'higher quality / real wood', but at most it looks about 10-20% better than vinyl or painted.

dLockers said:
A reasonable sized IKEA unit, non fitted, is easily a grand.
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The internal fittings / soft close mechanisms on most fitted furniture is also so above and beyond Ikea units that its no joke. When I visited the Ikea showroom, everything from the cheapest £80 units up to £600 PAX units were all stiff / jammed / rickety / wobbly / loud to open and close, and thats when they are put together by Ikea themselves. If you have shared walls you would need to have absolutely no concern for your neighbours to get such furniture.
 
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They charge such high price because it's called designer dream luxury living the dream or whatever and it's a trend invented by these companies who sell it. Same with the bathrooms with the combined toilet/basin with cupboard/drawers built in and big tiles. At the end of the day it's a very high mark up for some vinyl or acrylic wrapped MDF. You could get a couple of solid wood wardrobes and drawers from somewhere like Oak Furnitureland which will last a life time, plus you can take them with you when you move for the same price.
 
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It also uses otherwise pointless space in an effective way, but yeah it's totally up there with wet rooms and smart meters :rolleyes:
 
LeeUK said:
They charge such high price because it's called designer dream luxury living the dream or whatever and it's a trend invented by these companies who sell it. Same with the bathrooms with the combined toilet/basin with cupboard/drawers built in and big tiles. At the end of the day it's a very high mark up for some vinyl or acrylic wrapped MDF. You could get a couple of solid wood wardrobes and drawers from somewhere like Oak Furnitureland which will last a life time, plus you can take them with you when you move for the same price.
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Actually these sub £5000 prices arent even that much, the 'dream luxury living' places like Neville Johnson would charge £25k for this.
 
dLockers said:
A reasonable sized IKEA unit, non fitted, is easily a grand.
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I have an Ikea PAX double wardrobe, and we spec'ed it up with extra drawers/ shelves, sliding glass door etc, and that was £600 about 5 years ago.

But I see ikea stuff as expensive, it looks cheap initially, then every optional extra is silly expensive which pushes the overall price up.

Looking at bespoke fitted wardrobes, at the end of the day it is made of wood (well MDF) and it can't really take a decent carpenter longer than a day to fit can it ?
Ever at £200 a day for 2 days that is £400 labour, and then you're telling me there are £2000 worth of materials in there ?

Sadly I am probably going to end up having to pay it myself at some point as my carpentry work isn't precise enough, but I see a lot of people DIY it in a couple of days with great results.
 
A lot of the DIYers I know simply box the IKEA stuff in. Gives you 90% of the structure. I think there is an IKEA hack website that guides you through it.
 
Looks like some more of the space could definately have been used.

Sometimes it's a trade off of practicality, cost and aesthetics.

We "lost" a bit of space above our built in wardrobes but in reality you would need a step ladder or chair to reach the space and then we would have had to make the main wardrobes lower to get the standard size "box" in above them. That then meant a lever door for the wardrobes and smaller door above for the additional storage. This looked "odd" and also cost significantly more.
 
Angled walls pretty much defeat the usefulness of most free standing furtniture.

In my lounge my radiator and needing to be able to pass cables through from the electrical sockets also does. Also with there being no garage or shed, I was needing to maximize storage space.

£600 for a double Ikea PAX wardrobe at the time - they were not only half as narrow as my fitted one, but being unsecured units as well as how thin they were meant they would collapse forwards a lot - people warned my about this on Ikea related forums when I was considering then.

Also wanting a corner L shape unit to fit the space that I had, the ikea corner units had diagonal backing as well that would block a lot of usable space. The 2x2 in L shape fitted plan I got had no backs, which means I can fill them up all the way to the wall, top to bottom and front to back.

Also the cost of fitted furniture minus any cost for age / degradation can be added to the valuation of your property if you decide to sell in the future, and you can try to base this on the non discounted price.

A lot of houses with no garage or space for even a shed need to try to maximize internal storage.
 
Just remembered when I rejected my sharps quote they emailed me an extra £200 off a few weeks later.

But £200 off the prices here wouldnt bring it down to the £2k offer from the local fitter.

Check that what the local fitter is offering will also have strong / smooth soft close hinges as well, and make sure the materials are the same (MDF or laminate / chipboard).
 
BallistixOnZ490 said:
Angled walls pretty much defeat the usefulness of most free standing furtniture.

In my lounge my radiator and needing to be able to pass cables through from the electrical sockets also does. Also with there being no garage or shed, I was needing to maximize storage space.

£600 for a double Ikea PAX wardrobe at the time - they were not only half as narrow as my fitted one, but being unsecured units as well as how thin they were meant they would collapse forwards a lot - people warned my about this on Ikea related forums when I was considering then.

Also wanting a corner L shape unit to fit the space that I had, the ikea corner units had diagonal backing as well that would block a lot of usable space. The 2x2 in L shape fitted plan I got had no backs, which means I can fill them up all the way to the wall, top to bottom and front to back.

Also the cost of fitted furniture minus any cost for age / degradation can be added to the valuation of your property if you decide to sell in the future, and you can try to base this on the non discounted price.

A lot of houses with no garage or space for even a shed need to try to maximize internal storage.
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Might have missed it in the posts somewhere but which range did you go for? I'm looking for backless carcasses to DIY our walk in wardrobe, no skirting or anything in place so want to sit them tight to the wall.
 
JRJ said:
Might have missed it in the posts somewhere but which range did you go for? I'm looking for backless carcasses to DIY our walk in wardrobe, no skirting or anything in place so want to sit them tight to the wall.
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Hammonds and Sharps are all backless carcasses, with optional backing on certain ranges. I picked Hammonds Avon (main bedroom without backing), Vigo office (second bedroom with backed cube shelves and desk), and most likely Harpsden for the lounge which will either be unbacked or have removable backing for Radiator and socket access (this was my favourite wardrobe range, but I wanted the vinyl bedframe and Avon was available on 3 years interest free at the time).

With only 3 rooms to do its not as bad as a larger house would cost, approx £10K spread over 3 years.
 
BallistixOnZ490 said:
Hammonds and Sharps are all backless carcasses, with optional backing on certain ranges. I picked Hammonds Avon (main bedroom without backing), Vigo office (second bedroom with backed cube shelves and desk), and most likely Harpsden for the lounge which will either be unbacked or have removable backing for Radiator and socket access (this was my favourite wardrobe range, but I wanted the vinyl bedframe and Avon was available on 3 years interest free at the time).

With only 3 rooms to do its not as bad as a larger house would cost, approx £10K spread over 3 years.
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Thanks very much I'll take a look at these ranges, going to get a quote before I decide on the DIY option.
 
JRJ said:
Thanks very much I'll take a look at these ranges, going to get a quote before I decide on the DIY option.
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Those ranges aren't necessarily the 'best' or preferable, it depends on what you like the look of, you can see them all on their website.

So like Harpsden was their first painted range, and then they added 3 more plus more colours over time, Croft removes the edge / inlay for a more minimal look, then Marden and Langton offer a smooth / polished finish instead of grain with more mirror options. Similarly there are multiple ranges available with the same vinyl finshes, so while my main bedroom was just under £3900 with the Avon range, it would have been about £250 less in the older Libretto range. The only reason I picked the Avon was it was offered at the time on 3 years interest free, otherwise I would have been fine with the cheaper one.

{SAS}TB's pics perfectly show what the harpsden range looks like, and then the latest painted range offers super fancy mirror options instead of the inlaid border - https://www.hammonds-uk.com/fitted-wardrobes/langton

So I definitely want the new French Gray colour, and for lounge they offer 3 of those ranges, which I will compare during the survey.
 
On the topic of fitted wardrobes for sloped ceilings, I recently found this youtube channel that I'm enjoying watching that gives tours of houses, and this is just absolutely shocking for a £950,000 house with pre installed 'fitted wardrobes'

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5lTEgV10gA

The builder that made my house actually offers Hammonds wardrobes to the main bedroom as standard which is how I first learned about fitted furniture, except they offer a lower barebones specification to their affordable houses so I didn't get them included with mine.

£950,000 for this house and they cant even use at least Hammonds or Sharps, and advertise this hardly better than Ikea PAX stuff as being 'fitted wardrobes'
 
Meh, we've got three PAX wardrobes together, works a treat.

They don't topple, unless you were to hang on them....like any wardrobe really?
 
Delvis said:
Meh, we've got three PAX wardrobes together, works a treat.

They don't topple, unless you were to hang on them....like any wardrobe really?
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If you've assembled them well, and also depending on the layout you have, its not always an issue.

However there are many such cases as these examples from people that have used PAX wardrobes

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2238455/anti-topple-device-ikea-wardrobe

https://www.reddit.com/r/DIY/comments/50jkkk/advice_needed_prevent_a_wardrobe_from_tipping_over/
 
Just taken these down from a bungalow we just brought, they were very made and fitted :).

Found the original invoice it was a few quid short of £4000. They were Sharp's about ten years ago.



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