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Richmond upon Thames · London
Alcove units in Teddington, Richmond upon Thames
Alcove units for your home in Teddington: 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.
- Alcoves that aren’t square
- Worn or badly fitted alcove units
- A place for a small desk
Alcove units designed for your room
Your questions about alcove units in Teddington
Can you make alcove units for a home in Teddington?
Yes. Teddington is one of the places we work, along with the rest of Richmond upon Thames and London. To get started, you can drop us a line using the contact form with a few details.
Can parking be tricky on fitting day in Teddington?
It depends on the street, as many London boroughs run controlled parking zones. Depending on the street, a visitor permit, a paid bay or a bay suspension through the council may be needed, and suspensions often need notice. Let us know what parking is near you at the design visit.
How much will my alcove unit cost?
Size, doors and drawers, what goes inside and the finish all affect it, along with access and parking. The price comes in a quote in writing after the design visit.
Can you fit a desk into an alcove?
Yes. You can have a desk in one alcove and cupboards in the other. We’ll plan the desk around how you work.
Does fitted furniture need planning permission?
Not normally. Fitted furniture inside a house doesn’t normally need planning permission, even in a conservation area. If the building is listed, works affecting its character can require listed building consent, so ask the council’s conservation officer.
Who moves the sockets behind the alcove units?
Electrical work is not something we do. If you want sockets moved or added, your electrician should do that before we fit. We plan the units around the sockets, with cut-outs where needed.
How we make alcove units for Teddington
We make alcove units from moisture-resistant MDF and birch plywood, chosen part by part. MDF gives smooth doors and panels that take paint well, while birch plywood is strong and holds screws well. You can have a spray-painted finish from the workshop or a hand-painted one done on site, in the colour you choose. Most enquiries start with somewhere to keep books and records and walls too uneven for standard furniture, and the answer is made in our workshop from birch ply and moisture-resistant MDF, painted by hand or sprayed.
In streets where so much of the housing went up before 1919, as it did around Teddington, the living room is often two rooms knocked through, with a chimney breast in each half. That can mean one pair of alcoves for shelving and the other for low cupboards, with the screen on a chimney breast between. Some internal walls in houses of that age are lath and plaster, so fixings are chosen to suit what’s behind the paint, and long shelves are sized so they do not sag under books.
A quote in writing follows the design visit. It describes the design we discussed, the materials and the finish.
- Where
- Teddington (TW11, TW12, TW2, TW1)
- Area
- Richmond upon Thames
- Cost
- Quoted for your room
- First step
- We visit, measure, then quote
- Made
- Workshop-made, then fitted
- Made from
- MDF and birch plywood, painted
- When we fit
- Weekdays (Saturdays if arranged)
- Enquiries
- The contact form
- Page updated
- 27 October 2026
Neighbourhoods near Teddington
More for homes in Teddington
What happens on fitting day
Period rooms often have skirting boards, picture rails, cornices or coving for the furniture to meet. We cut and scribe the furniture around them on site, so it looks as though it was always there. The time the fitting takes depends on the size of the alcoves and what goes in them, and the fitting days are set out in your quote. Where a period house has been split into flats, the way in often goes through shared parts, so neighbours may appreciate a note before fitting day. Each section is sized for the tightest door or turn. Saturdays can be arranged.
- You contact us with a short note about the room and the units you have in mind, and a rough sketch helps if you have one.
- We come to measure the alcoves, look at the walls and agree the design with you, noting the skirting, picture rail and any chimney vent.
- We send a quote in writing for the units.
- The units are made in our workshop, using moisture-resistant MDF and birch plywood.
- We install the units, set them level and scribe them to the alcoves. Then we go through the doors and shelves with you.
Before we arrive
- Let us know if your street is in a controlled parking zone
- Let us know where the boiler and meters are
- Move furniture and belongings away from the wall
Getting a quote
Every quote follows a design visit. At the visit, we measure, look at the walls and floors and go through the design with you, then send a written quote. There’s no price list: each design is priced in writing after we’ve seen the space. To book a design visit, drop us a line using the contact form.
Related advice
Do you need alcove units in Teddington?
Often the alcoves are simply the biggest unused space in the room. Standard furniture seldom fits an alcove, leaving gaps at the sides and above. A fitted unit fills the recess.
Common reasons to get in touch include:
- Cupboards in keeping with an older house
- Toys and paperwork with no proper home
- Space for a growing book collection
- Empty alcoves either side of the chimney breast
If your home is as old as some of the listed buildings nearby, such as Church of St Mary, original features like shutters, panelling and fireplaces are worth designing around. For a listed home, fixing into original features can need listed building consent.
Questions to ask before you hire anyone
- Do they scribe the furniture to the walls?
- Whether they measure the room themselves
- Will the quote be in writing?
- Which materials they’ll use, named in the quote
Bespoke or off-the-shelf?
A confident DIYer can manage simple shelves or a standard wardrobe in a square room. It gets harder with sloping ceilings, out-of-level floors and lath-and-plaster walls, because scribing and the right fixings start to matter.
Where bespoke earns its keep is in rooms that are not square. Older London rooms tend to have leaning walls, sloping floors and alcoves of different widths, which leaves standard units with gaps at the sides and top.
Materials and finishes
Birch plywood
Birch plywood helps shelves stay straight under books over a wider alcove. Thickness is chosen to suit the span and the weight.
Plinths and scribe strips
In older houses, we usually scribe the sides and often the top too. It is the difference between a unit that sits in the alcove and one that belongs there.
Alcove units in Teddington: local notes
About 46% of the homes in the streets around Teddington went up before 1919, and about 17% between 1945 and 1972, going by the Valuation Office Agency’s 2025 council tax figures. Each era brings its own kind of wall, ceiling height and floor, so it shapes the design from the first measurement. The centre of Teddington is within about a quarter of a mile of the High Street Teddington Conservation Area. Planning controls in conservation areas are mainly concerned with the outside of buildings, so fitting furniture inside a house doesn’t normally need permission. Your council can advise if you are unsure. Since the zone was extended to the outer boroughs in August 2023, the whole of London has been inside the ULEZ. It applies to every van that comes to fit furniture in Teddington. Parking and access are planned during the design visit.
If you live near Bushy Park, alcove units can be planned to frame a window with a view rather than block it. If you live in a flat close to Teddington station, alcove units are made in sections sized for the stairs, landings and lift, so measuring the route matters as much as measuring the room.
Teddington is about 1 mile north of Twickenham, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. Whether your home in Teddington is a terraced house, a flat or a newer build, we measure the room as it is and design around it. Our work takes in places right across Richmond upon Thames, large and small.
Here we cover the TW11, TW12, TW2 and TW1 postcode area for alcove units. We cover homes on streets like Station Road, High Street and Church Road, along with the roads around them, whether you want alcove units or another piece made for the room. Teddington sits close to the A311 and A313, and we plan where the van can stop before fitting day. Neighbouring places we cover for alcove units include Strawberry Hill (1 mile north), Fulwell (1 mile north-west), Hampton Hill (1 mile west), Ham (1 mile north-east) and Eel Pie Island (1 mile north). Elsewhere in Richmond upon Thames, we also cover Richmond (2 miles north-east), Richmond upon Thames (3 miles north-east), Hampton (2 miles west), Barnes (5 miles north-east), Kew (5 miles north-east) and Hanworth (2 miles west). As one of the bigger places in Richmond upon Thames, Teddington is covered for alcove units and everything else we make.
Around Teddington
Our area takes in the homes around Park Hotel, Turing House School and Newland House School and the streets around them. Teddington has its own railway station: Teddington station. Nearby you will also find Bentall Centre (1.6 miles south-east) and Teddington Memorial Hospital (under half a mile west). Open spaces near Teddington include Ham Lands.
Honest limits
Damp treatment and building work are for other specialists, so these points are worth knowing:
- Electrical work, like new sockets or switches, which is for your electrician
- Making good damaged walls before fitting
- Taking out a chimney breast or opening up a fireplace
Not sure whether your space suits alcove units? You can use our contact form and we will tell you. Our process from visit to fitting.
What it’s made from
- Moisture-resistant MDF
- Spray-painted finish
- Hand-painted finish
- Scribed side panels
- Birch plywood
- Panelled or flat doors
- Adjustable shelves