Built in furniture in alcoves

[BananaPie]

Anyone had a carpenter build furniture into alcoves? I'm considering this, but was wondering what a ball park figure for costs would be in London.

We had this done in our Victorian semi last year and it was £1100 per alcove. Looks fab - we are in the south west though.

we had shelves built in, going about halfway down, without a cupboard at the base. I prefer the flexibility of having the space to put an small expedit cube or TV storage in, or a low chair or beanbag.

anyway, my main point is that even for the shelving our quotes varied hugely. One alcove specialist wanted over £900 just for the four shelves in each alcoves. I found a non-specialist chippy to do the same for £180.

How's your DIY? I'm looking at using these when we do ours:

diyalcovecabinets.co.uk/

My H did this either side of our fire place

We had a cupboard and floating shelves like Mandy installed in two alcoves earlier this year. Cost about £1K for both. Took the carpenter about 3 or 4 days.

All really useful, thank you. DIY isn't an option unfortunately, due to both our incompetence and the existence of small children who seem to occupy every second of free time!

We had similar and it cost about 1500 quid for two alcoves (London). We could have paid three times the price but decided chipboard was sufficient rather than real oak, given it was going to be painted and would look the same anyway. Two days to fit it; two days to paint

We had alcove shelves and cupboards put in - large cupboards at the bottom, massive alcoves that required extra support for the shelves in the middle, plus extra cupboards at the top. All in wood and painted to match our shutters (specific shade of white). Fantastic quality, they look stunning. Think they came in under £2k for the pair.

However we used someone who was based in Norfolk, we're in N London. He came on the train to measure up, went away and built everything in his workshop, came and fitted them in a day.

It's always worth checking if craftsmen outside London will travel to you, we've found.

That is all much more expensive than I'd imagine!

We're looking to do this but I've designed the cupboard/shelf layout and included a charging cupboard which will need loads of sockets to be installed. We're only doing one side of the fireplace I think as I'd like the other to be a cosy nook.
I think they all look great! ^^

We had similar and it took 5 man days and cost around 1400.Carpenters work in a 200-250 day rate plus materials.We did the painting which took us several days.Looks great though and positive comments from everyone.

Our carpenter worked continuously so I know there is a lot of work which doesn't appear likely from the outset.

I think one of the challenges in our Victorian house was trying to get everything level as nothing was straight!

Yes, I had a wardrobe built in and it was about £600