Example photo by Pete Alexopoulos on Unsplash, not our project
Camden · London
St Pancras Alcove Units
Alcove units for your home in St Pancras: cupboards and shelves built into the alcoves beside a chimney breast. We visit to measure and talk through the design, make the furniture in our workshop and fit it.
- A place for a small desk
- Standard units leaving gaps at the sides
- Space for a growing book collection
Alcove units designed for your room
About our alcove units in St Pancras
In a typical Victorian or Edwardian terrace, the chimney breast leaves an alcove on either side of it. Alcove units turn that space into cupboards and shelves that look as though they belong there. Where a room in St Pancras has a pair of alcoves, we design a unit for each one. We make alcove units from birch plywood and moisture-resistant MDF with a spray-painted or hand-painted finish, and people most often get in touch about shop-bought shelving that doesn’t fill the recess and old alcove cupboards that have seen better days.
In a block of flats, the stairs, lift and doors decide how big each section can be. With purpose-built flats home to most households around St Pancras, the sections for alcove units are planned during the design visit, sized for the tightest point on the way in. The joins are placed where they will not show once the furniture is fitted.
If the job needs another trade, such as an electrician or a plumber, we’ll tell you. The quote itself covers our work, from the design to the materials and finish.
- Place
- St Pancras (NW1W, W1T, N1)
- Borough
- Camden
- Price
- Quoted for your room
- How it starts
- We visit, measure, then quote
- Made
- Workshop-made, then fitted
- Made from
- MDF and plywood, painted to order
- Fitting days
- Monday to Friday; Saturdays by arrangement
- Enquiries
- Send us a message
- Last updated
- 27 October 2026
Flat-pack or bespoke?
Off-the-shelf furniture can be a sensible choice. If the walls are straight and the space suits standard sizes, it often does the job.
It is worth being honest about cost: off-the-shelf furniture normally costs less up front. Bespoke makes more sense where the room is tricky, the space is valuable or you want the furniture to look built in.
How fitting works for alcove units
At the end, we tidy up and lift the floor protection. Before we leave, we go over the finished piece together. The time the fitting takes depends on how many alcoves there are and how tall the units go, and we confirm the fitting days in your quote. Sections come into the flat in the order they’re fitted, so the flat does not fill up. Floors are covered and dust is kept down. The fixings suit each wall, whether solid or stud.
- To begin, tell us about the room on our contact form; a brief note on the room and the alcoves is enough.
- We visit to measure the alcoves, discuss the design and check the route from the street to the room. Parking is worth mentioning too, since a van often needs a permit or a paid bay in London.
- We then send a quote in writing for the units.
- The units are made in our workshop from moisture-resistant MDF and birch plywood, in sections sized to come through your door.
- On fitting day the sections come in, are joined in place and scribed to the walls. A spray-painted finish arrives done; a hand-painted one is applied once the units are in.
Getting ready for fitting day
- Move furniture and belongings away from the wall
- Let us know where the boiler and meters are
- Move anything in the hall or on the stairs out of the way
Starting with a design visit
To get a quote, send us a few details through our contact form and tell us a little about the room and roughly what you’d like. From there, we arrange a design visit to measure up and talk through your ideas, and a written quote follows.
Advice
What affects the price in St Pancras
A few things affect what fitted furniture costs:
- The internal fittings
- The overall size of the piece
- Walls and floors that are out of level or out of square
- Stairs, lifts and the route to the room
We do not publish set prices, because each job is designed for a single room. Instead, we measure, go through the design and then quote in writing. To arrange a design visit, tell us about the room on our contact form.
Getting in touch
When you contact us, these help most:
- A few pictures of the space, taken from the doorway and from each corner
- Approximate measurements of the space
- What you’d like to store or use the space for
- Whether it’s a house or a flat, and if there are stairs or a lift
If you know what you want, say so; if you do not, that’s fine, and we can work it out together. The design is talked through at the visit, once we’ve measured, and the written quote that follows sets it out. To start, drop us a line using the contact form.
St Pancras homes and alcove units
Homes built before 1919 make up about 41% of the housing in the neighbourhood around St Pancras, with about 19% built since 2000, on the Valuation Office Agency’s council tax figures for 2025. We take that into account at the design visit, since older and newer walls take different fixings. 13 conservation areas have at least part of their area less than a mile from the middle of St Pancras. Historic England says England has around 10,000, and the controls mainly cover the outside of buildings, so fitted furniture inside a house does not normally need planning permission. About 41% of homes in the neighbourhood around St Pancras were built before 1919, according to Valuation Office Agency council tax figures (2025). Houses of that age normally have a chimney breast with an alcove each side, and alcove units are built to those exact widths.
Living in a block of flats near London Kings Cross station? Then the route in is measured not just the room, and the sections are sized to fit it. If your home is one of the older houses near Lumen United Reformed Church, 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 Pancras, about 0.5 miles west of the centre of St Pancras, older homes may keep original joinery that alcove units can be designed around. For a listed home, fixing into original features can require listed building consent.
St Pancras is part of the London Borough of Camden. We can visit homes in St Pancras on weekdays, or on a Saturday by prior arrangement. We cover places right across Camden, large and small.
Postcode districts we cover here for alcove units: NW1W, W1T and N1. Streets in the area include Shoe Lane, Long Lane and City Road, and homes on each of them are within our area for alcove units. St Pancras sits close to the A4 and A40. If you are just outside St Pancras, we also cover Bloomsbury (1 mile south-west), Kings Cross (1 mile north-west), Holborn (1 mile south-east), Clerkenwell (1 mile east) and Angel (1 mile north-east). Elsewhere in Camden, we also cover Hampstead (3 miles north-west), West Hampstead (4 miles north-west), Kentish Town (2 miles north-west), Greenhill (3 miles north-west), Chalk Farm (2 miles north-west) and Dartmouth Park (3 miles north-west). As one of the bigger places in Camden, St Pancras is covered for all of our fitted furniture.
Near you in St Pancras
Our area takes in the homes around City Academy, Pilsudski Institute of London and Calthorpe Arms Public House, among other places. St Pancras’s nearest station is London Kings Cross station, about 0.5 miles north-west of the centre. Other landmarks nearby include Foundling Museum (under half a mile west) and Montfichet's Tower (1.1 miles south-east). Open spaces near St Pancras include Barnsbury Wood and Ludgate Hill.
Common questions about alcove units
Can you make alcove units for a home in St Pancras?
Yes, we work across Camden, St Pancras included, and across the rest of London. You can get in touch through our contact form to arrange a design visit.
I live near London Kings Cross station. Is that in your area?
Yes. We cover all of Camden and the rest of London. To get started, you can send us a few details through our contact form with a few details about the room.
Will alcove units block the chimney vent?
We plan alcove units so any chimney vent stays clear. Even a blocked chimney needs some ventilation to help keep damp away, so we never box a vent in.
Can you fit a desk into an alcove?
Yes. You can have a desk in one alcove and cupboards in the other. The desk is planned around the way you work.
Can you add sockets inside the units?
Your electrician handles sockets and wiring. Ideally it’s done before fitting, and we can tell you where the units will sit so the sockets end up in the right place. The units are made with cut-outs and cable gaps to suit.
Should I send photos?
Yes. Pictures help us understand the room before the design visit. Show anything the furniture has to work around, such as radiators or sockets.
How it’s made
Shelves
We set shelf spacing around what you own so tall books and records have room. Upper shelves can be shallower for a lighter look.
Moisture-resistant MDF
Moisture-resistant MDF is stable and takes paint well, so we use it for doors, panels and the faces you see. It’s a good match for alcoves on an external wall.
Flats, conversions and leaseholders
Many London terraces have been converted into flats, which often brings a shared hall and tight turns on the stairs. Each section is sized with that in mind.
In a flat, the route in matters as much as the room. We measure the stairs, landings, lift and doorways as well as the room, so each section is sized to get through without a struggle.