Building storage into alcoves...advice?

[Bangtastic]

I was thinking of building 2 storage units either side of my chimney breast, with either doors on the front or a lid that opens to hide junk in, and doubled up as sideboards to put lamps/bits and bobs on top. They'd be no higher than a coffee table though.

How do you think I'd go about doing this? What would I need to do in terms of building a frame onto the wall to support the structure, making it strong enough to handle somebody DD sitting on it?

Ideally they'd be something like this - this but with double doors or a liftable lid instead of drawers. Hopefully they'd make the room more streamlined and offer more storage to hide DDs toys than the tables we have there now.

Any advice would be great, thanks :)

Well, personally I'd "get a man in"
Seriously - when we've put shelving into our alcoves, there's had to be some very careful measuring / adapting going on as the walls are so uneven. Maybe you don't live in a Victorian house though, and your walls were built using a spirit level ?

It was built in the 50's... the walls can be quite off, should have seen us building our own kitchen put me off for life - I'm all for getting a man in after that it's bloody stubborn DH who fancies himself as some sort of Handy Andy! He's busy at work atm, I think I'll surprise him and save him some work, only thinking of him of course

I have a friend, who homeschools. She has fitted canards in her alcoves and a window seat. Hers has a lifting lid because it doubles as seating for the table, so you couldn't get to a draw.

It works really well, hides all the children's books and pens in a small house.

Hers were hilt by her DH, but he earns his living with his hands and is very practical.

My DH could be trusted to do the window seat, but her lovely varnished eye level cupboards I'd doubt.