Example photo by Pete Alexopoulos on Unsplash, not our project
Redbridge · London
Alcove units in Monkhams, Redbridge
Alcove units for your home in Monkhams: cupboards and shelves built into the alcoves beside a chimney breast. Each piece is designed at a visit to your home, made at our workshop and fitted by us.
- Furniture that does not fit the alcove
- Worn or badly fitted alcove units
- Walls too uneven for standard furniture
Alcove units designed for your room
How fitting day works
At the end, we tidy up. Before we go, we look over the finished furniture with you. How long fitting takes depends on how many alcoves there are and how tall the units go, and your quote sets out the fitting days. If you have a driveway, it can make unloading simpler, so it’s worth mentioning during the design visit. Otherwise, a visitor permit or a nearby bay helps. Floors and doorways are protected while the pieces come in.
- You tell us which room it is and roughly what you’d like in the alcoves.
- We visit to measure, look at how the walls run and note the skirting, picture rail and any vent.
- We send a written quote setting out the layout, materials and finish. If anything needs changing, just tell us.
- Once you’re happy, the units are made in our workshop, using moisture-resistant MDF and birch plywood.
- We fit the units, scribe them to the walls and set them level. The finish is sprayed in our workshop or hand-painted on site, as agreed.
How to prepare
- Leave a clear route from the front door to the room
- Point out meters, boilers and fuse boards near the furniture
- Move furniture and belongings away from the wall
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 go through the design with you. A quote in writing follows the visit for you to look over. To book one, send us a few details through our contact form.
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Alcove units in Monkhams
Most Victorian and Edwardian terraced houses have a chimney breast in the main rooms, with an alcove on each side. Built-in alcove units put that space to work as cupboards and shelving that look as though they belong there. If your home in Monkhams has alcoves like these, each alcove gets a unit designed for it, starting with a design visit to measure. Typical reasons to get in touch are alcoves that are wasted space and shelving for books and records; the furniture is made from MDF made to resist moisture and birch plywood, then spray-painted or hand-painted.
A good part of the housing around Monkhams is interwar, semi-detached or detached. In a typical 1930s house, the front room has a bay at one end and a chimney breast with an alcove to either side, and that layout shapes where alcove units work best. Walls are often truer than in older houses, but they’re still measured carefully and scribed where they wander.
A quote in writing is the clearest record of what we have agreed. It sets out the alcove unit designed for your room, its materials and its finish, and it is what the workshop builds to.
- Where
- Monkhams (IG8, IG9, E4)
- Area
- Redbridge
- Price
- Quoted for your room
- To begin
- A design visit: we measure and talk it through
- Making
- In our workshop, then fitted in your home
- Boards and paint
- MDF and plywood, painted to order
- When we fit
- Weekdays, and Saturdays by prior arrangement
- Contact
- The contact form
- Updated
- 27 October 2026
What affects the price in Monkhams
Each piece is designed for one room, so each price is too. The things that affect it are:
- The overall size of the piece
- Hanging rails, shelves, drawers and other fittings inside
- How many doors and drawers there are
- Whether you choose a spray or hand-painted finish
The price comes in a written quote, worked out from the measurements and the design you choose. The price depends mainly on the size of the piece, how many doors and drawers it has and what goes inside.
Before the design visit
Before the design visit, it helps us to know about:
- Rough measurements, even if they’re only to the nearest few centimetres
- How you want to use the space
- Pictures showing the full wall, from floor to ceiling
- Any ideas or images you’ve saved
Pictures help us understand the room before we visit. A few pictures showing the walls, the corners and where the ceiling meets them give us a good feel for the space, especially with rough measurements. To send them over, message us from the contact page, and we’ll suggest a time for a design visit.
DIY, flat-pack or bespoke
If you are handy, a simple shelf or a standard wardrobe in a square room is a reasonable DIY job. It gets harder with sloping ceilings, out-of-level floors and lath-and-plaster walls, where scribing and fixings that suit the wall are important.
The real difference is in 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.
Alcove units for homes in Monkhams
The biggest shares of homes in the streets around Monkhams were built between 1945 and 1972 (about 33%) and between 1919 and 1939 (about 31%), according to Valuation Office Agency council tax figures (2025). Each era brings its own kind of wall, ceiling height and floor, so it shapes the design from the first measurement. Near the centre of Monkhams, Historic England’s list includes Main Quadrangle (Grade II), under half a mile north, and Church of All Saints' (Grade II), less than half a mile south. Listing covers the inside of a building as well as the outside, so works that affect a listed home’s character, like removing original joinery, can require listed building consent. Ask the council’s conservation officer before anything is fixed. About 31% of homes in the neighbourhood around Monkhams date from between 1919 and 1939, on the Valuation Office Agency’s council tax figures for 2025. Interwar front rooms usually have a bay at the front and a chimney breast on the side wall, and alcove units are planned around both.
If your home is one of the older houses near All Saints' Church, picture rails and cornices give alcove units a line to finish at. If your children go to Wells Primary School or a school nearby, low doors that small hands can open, with books and ornaments higher up, suit a busy family room. For a flat near Highams Park station, the route in is measured along with the room itself, and the sections are sized to fit it.
Monkhams is part of the London Borough of Redbridge, about 1 mile south of Woodford. Monkhams is part of the area we cover. In Redbridge, Monkhams is one of the places we cover, and the borough has 18 places on our list.
Every home in IG8, IG9 and E4 is covered for alcove units, from the main roads to the quieter streets. Our area takes in homes on streets such as Oak Lane, Wood Lane and Mill Lane, along with the roads around them, for alcove units and any of our other fitted furniture. Monkhams sits close to the A121, and we plan where the van can stop before fitting day. Close by, we also work in Woodford Wells (1 mile east), Friday Hill (1 mile west), Woodford (1 mile south), Chingford Hatch (1 mile west) and Waltham Forest (1 mile north). Other parts of Redbridge we cover include Ilford (4 miles south-east), Loxford (5 miles south-east), Wanstead (3 miles south), South Woodford (2 miles south), Newbury Park (4 miles south-east) and Gants Hill (3 miles south-east).
Local landmarks in Monkhams
In Monkhams, that includes homes near Trinity Catholic High School, Woodford Green Preparatory School and The Monkhams pub, among other places. For rail, the closest station is Highams Park station, roughly 1.2 miles south-west. Other landmarks nearby include The Epping Forest Museum (1.3 miles north). Open spaces near Monkhams include Highams Park Lake.
Materials and finishes
Shelves
Shelf heights are planned around your things so tall books and records have room. A shallower top shelf can keep things within reach.
Moisture-resistant MDF
MDF doesn’t have a grain to show through the paint, so a painted finish looks even and calm. We choose the moisture-resistant grade for fitted furniture.
Common questions about alcove units
Can you make alcove units for a home in Monkhams?
Yes, Monkhams is within the area we cover, which takes in all of Redbridge and the rest of London. The first step is a design visit, where we measure and discuss the design, and then we send a quote.
I live near Highams Park station. Is that in your area?
Yes. We cover all of Redbridge and the rest of London. You can fill in our short enquiry form to arrange a design visit.
Who moves the sockets behind the alcove units?
We don’t do electrical work. New or moved sockets are a job for your electrician, ideally before fitting. We plan the units around the sockets, with cut-outs where needed.
How long are you in the house for the fitting?
The fitting depends on the size of the alcoves and what goes in them, and the fitting days are set out in your quote. We will talk you through what fitting day involves before we start.
Can an alcove unit include a desk?
Yes. You can have a desk in one alcove and cupboards in the other. We’ll plan the desk around how you work.
Do alcove units affect the chimney’s ventilation?
Any vent in the chimney breast is kept clear when we design the units. A capped or blocked chimney should still be ventilated to help stop damp and we design around it.
Made for the room, or bought in a box?
The depth of an alcove is set by the chimney breast. A shop-bought cabinet may stick out past the chimney breast or leave a deep gap behind it. We set the depth to suit the room, flush with the chimney breast or set back from it. The spaces between doors, windows and radiators are seldom a stock size, so ready-made furniture often ends up in the wrong place. Fitted furniture is designed around them.
Parking is part of the price picture in London. Much of London is covered by controlled parking zones, so a van may need a visitor permit, a paid bay or a bay suspension near your home. It’s useful to talk about parking during the design visit, so we can plan for it.
What you get with us
- Moisture-resistant MDF and birch plywood
- 300+ projects completed
- Spray painted or hand painted, in the colour you choose
- Every London borough and the City of London covered
Read bespoke vs off-the-shelf or what a quote should include.