Example photo by Pete Alexopoulos on Unsplash, not our project
Ealing · London
Alcove Units in Brentham Garden Suburb
Cupboards and shelves built into the alcoves beside a chimney breast, designed for your room in Brentham Garden Suburb. After a design visit and a quote in writing, it is made in our workshop and fitted in your home.
- Bare alcoves beside the fireplace
- Walls too uneven for standard furniture
- Standard units leaving gaps at the sides
Alcove units in Brentham Garden Suburb
How it is made
Moisture-resistant MDF
MDF in a moisture-resistant grade is stable and paints beautifully, so we use it for doors, panels and the faces you see. It’s a sensible choice where an alcove sits against an external wall.
Spray-painted finish
A sprayed coat covers edges and corners evenly and leaves no brush marks. You choose the colour at the design stage.
How we make alcove units for Brentham Garden Suburb
In a tall room, a full-height alcove cupboard holds a great deal. In bedrooms, this often becomes a compact wardrobe or a place for bedding, and in a dining room a home for china and glass. At the design visit we ask what you plan to keep there, so shelves and rails go where they’re needed. We make alcove units from moisture-resistant MDF and birch plywood, finished by spray or by hand, and the things people most often want solved are toys and paperwork with no proper home and worn or badly fitted alcove units.
A house from between the wars usually has lower ceilings than a Victorian one, so alcove units are proportioned to the room rather than copied from a taller one. Where your home is one of the interwar houses or semis that are a big part of the housing around Brentham Garden Suburb, the cornice may be plain or missing, so the furniture can run straight to the ceiling. Any skirting is cut around neatly.
Everything we agree at the design visit goes into the written quote: the layout, what goes inside, the materials used and the finish. If you’d like to change anything, it’s easier before the furniture is made.
- Where
- Brentham Garden Suburb (W5, W13, UB6)
- Borough
- Ealing
- Cost
- Quoted for your room
- How it starts
- A design visit: we measure and talk it through
- Making
- Made in our workshop and fitted on site
- Made from
- MDF and plywood, painted to order
- Working days
- Weekdays; Saturdays on request
- Contact
- Send us a message
- Last updated
- 27 October 2026
Your questions about alcove units in Brentham Garden Suburb
Will parking be an issue for fitting furniture in Brentham Garden Suburb?
It can be, depending on whether your street is in a controlled parking zone. A van may need a visitor permit, a pay-and-display bay or a suspended bay, which the council arranges, often with notice. Let us know what parking is near you at the measuring visit.
Do you make alcove units for homes in Brentham Garden Suburb?
Yes, we work across Ealing, Brentham Garden Suburb included, and across the rest of London. To get started, you can tell us about the room on our contact form with some details.
Is it possible to have a desk built into one alcove?
Yes. A desk in one alcove, with shelves above and storage below, works well in many rooms. Height and depth are agreed with you.
Can you add sockets inside the units?
Electrical work isn’t something we do. If you want sockets moved or added, your electrician should do that before we fit, and some electrical work in homes is covered by Part P of the Building Regulations. We plan the units around the sockets, with cut-outs where needed.
Do both alcove units have to match?
It’s entirely your choice. Alcoves are often different widths anyway, so each unit is made for its own recess. They can match in style while doing different jobs.
How do I get a quote for alcove units in Brentham Garden Suburb?
The first step is to message us from the contact page and let us know about the room. After that, we arrange a design visit and follow it with a written quote.
What happens on fitting day
However carefully a piece is made in the workshop, it still has to meet the room, and that happens on fitting day. Walls in older homes are rarely flat or square, so each edge that meets a wall is scribed to follow it. How long the fitting itself takes depends on the size of the alcoves and what goes in them, and your quote sets out the fitting days. On fitting day, the sections are carried in, assembled, scribed to the wall and levelled. Hand-painted furniture can be finished on site; spray-painted pieces arrive finished from the workshop. Saturdays can be arranged.
- You get in touch and let us know about the room and the alcoves, and a rough sketch helps if you have one.
- We visit to measure the alcoves and discuss the design, noting the skirting, picture rail and any chimney vent.
- We send a written quote for the units, for you to read through at your own pace.
- Each unit is built in our workshop to the measurements we took, ready for a spray-painted finish or for hand painting on site.
- We install the units, set them level and scribe them to the alcoves, so they sit tight to the chimney breast.
Getting ready for fitting day
- Clear the area where the furniture is going
- Arrange any electrical changes with your electrician ahead of time
- If you live in a block, book the lift and tell the building manager
Ask for a quote
The design visit is where every quote starts. We measure the room properly, check how the walls and floors run and talk through the design with you. A quote in writing follows the visit. To book one, fill in our short enquiry form.
Related advice
Built-in living-room furniture in Brentham Garden Suburb
In the streets around Brentham Garden Suburb, the largest groups of homes date from between 1919 and 1939 (about 40%) and before 1919 (about 21%), on the Valuation Office Agency’s council tax figures for 2025. For carpentry, the era of a house is a useful clue to how square its rooms are and what its walls are made of. Brentham Garden Suburb is partly covered by the Brentham Garden Estate Conservation Area, according to Historic England’s records. The controls in a conservation area are mostly about the outside of buildings, so furniture fitted inside a house does not normally need planning permission. If you’re unsure, check with the council before work starts. Each London borough runs its own parking controls, and Ealing is no exception. If your street in Brentham Garden Suburb is in a controlled parking zone, a visitor’s permit, a paid parking bay or a bay suspension through the council may be needed. It helps to tell us about parking at the measuring visit.
The wider area includes historic houses like Pitzhanger Manor, about 1.1 miles south. For a period home anywhere nearby, walls that bow and floors that slope are why alcove units are scribed to fit rather than pushed into place. Near listed buildings like Church of St Peter, under half a mile south-east of the centre of Brentham Garden Suburb, older homes may keep original joinery that alcove units can be designed around. If your own home is listed, check with the council before fixing into original features.
Brentham Garden Suburb is about 1 mile south of Ealing, in the London Borough of Ealing. Our work covers every London borough and the City of London, Brentham Garden Suburb included. We cover places right across Ealing.
Design visits and fitting in W5, W13 and UB6 work the same way as everywhere else we cover. We cover homes on streets such as Kings Road, Selby Road and Marsh Road, whether you want alcove units or another piece made for the room. If you are just outside Brentham Garden Suburb, we also cover Pitshanger (1 mile west), Perivale (1 mile north-west), Ealing (1 mile south), Hanwell (2 miles south-west) and South Ealing (2 miles south). Across the rest of Ealing, our area takes in Acton (2 miles south-east), Southall (3 miles south-west), Greenford (2 miles north-west), Northolt (3 miles north-west), Acton Green (3 miles south-east) and Bedford Park (3 miles south-east).
Landmarks near Brentham Garden Suburb
We fit furniture in homes around St Benedict's School, Ealing Independent College and Brentham Clubhouse pub and the streets around them. The closest station to Brentham Garden Suburb is Ealing Broadway station, roughly 0.9 miles south. A little further out are London Transport Museum Depot (1.9 miles south-east) and Central Middlesex Hospital (1.7 miles east). Open spaces near Brentham Garden Suburb include Fox Wood and Castlebar Hill.
Bespoke or off-the-shelf?
Off-the-shelf cupboards come in fixed sizes, so there is normally a gap left over at the top or at one end. Furniture we make is built to the room’s own sizes, so it can run to the ceiling and fill the width.
What you pay for with bespoke is mainly the fit: edges scribed to the wall, a level base on a sloping floor and a neat line where the furniture meets the ceiling. In an older room, standard units rarely manage that.
Honest limits
As carpenters, we leave some work to other trades. It is useful to know these before you plan the job:
- Replastering, which is a plasterer’s job
- Electrical work, such as new sockets or switches, which is for your electrician
- Finding and fixing the cause of damp
Not sure whether your space suits alcove units? You can fill in our short enquiry form and we will tell you before you arrange a visit. How a job runs, step by step.
What goes into it
- Hand-painted finish
- Moisture-resistant MDF
- Panelled or flat doors
- Spray-painted finish
- Scribed side panels
- Birch plywood
- Adjustable shelves
Nearby places to Brentham Garden Suburb
Other services in Brentham Garden Suburb
Why people ask for alcove units in Brentham Garden Suburb
A chimney breast without its fireplace can leave a wall that feels unfinished. Units on both sides frame the chimney breast and balance the room, whether or not the fireplace is used.
Typical reasons people contact us include:
- Empty alcoves either side of the chimney breast
- Storage that suits a period room
- Somewhere to keep books and records
- Room to work in an alcove
For a family home near St Gregory's Catholic Primary School, alcove units can be planned with low cupboards for toys and higher shelves for everything else.
Before you hire any carpenter
- Are the boards named, such as MDF or plywood?
- Have they measured the stairs, lift and doorways?
- Whether they can show you real projects they’ve done
- Have they thought about parking near you?