Example photo by Pete Alexopoulos on Unsplash, not our project
Bexley · London
Alcove units in Upton, Bexley
Alcove units for your home in Upton: 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.
- Room to work in an alcove
- Walls too uneven for standard furniture
- Furniture that does not fit the alcove
Alcove units for your home in Upton
FAQs: alcove units in Upton
Do you make alcove units for homes in Upton?
Yes, Upton is within the area we cover, which takes in all of Bexley and the rest of London. We start with a design visit to measure the room and talk through what you need, and then we send a quote.
Do you cover homes near Bexleyheath station?
Yes. We cover all of Bexley and the rest of London. To get started, you can use our contact form with some details about the room.
Can the two alcove units be different?
That depends on how you use the room. Alcoves are often different widths anyway. They can match in style while doing different jobs.
Are alcove units spray painted or hand painted?
You can choose a spray-painted finish from our workshop or a hand-painted finish in your home. Both are in a colour agreed with you. Spraying gives a smooth, even surface, and hand painting is easy to touch up.
How long are you in the house for the fitting?
How long fitting takes depends on the size and number of units, and the fitting days are set out in your quote. Most of the making happens in our workshop, so the time in your home is mostly fitting, scribing and finishing.
Do alcove units affect the chimney’s ventilation?
We plan alcove units so any chimney vent stays clear. A capped or blocked chimney should still be ventilated to help stop damp.
Alcove units for homes in Upton
Few alcoves in older houses are truly square. Walls bow, corners wander and floors slope. Each unit is made in our workshop to our measurements and scribed to the walls when we fit it, so the edges follow the plaster instead of leaving a gap. Adjustable feet or a plinth set it level. If you’re living with cupboards in keeping with an older house and old alcove cupboards that have seen better days, that’s what alcove units are for, made from birch plywood and moisture-resistant MDF with a spray-painted or hand-painted finish.
A good part of the housing around Upton 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 in houses of that age are usually straighter than in Victorian ones, though they’re still checked and scribed where needed.
If the job needs another trade, like an electrician or a plumber, we’ll tell you, so it can be arranged before fitting day. Our quote covers the carpentry: the design, the materials and the finish.
- Location
- Upton (DA6, DA7, DA16)
- Borough
- Bexley
- Cost
- Quoted for your room
- To begin
- A design visit: we measure and talk it through
- Made
- In our workshop, then fitted in your home
- Boards and paint
- MDF and plywood, painted to order
- When we fit
- Monday to Friday; Saturdays by arrangement
- Enquiries
- The contact form
- Page updated
- 27 October 2026
Bespoke or off-the-shelf?
Standard units come in set widths and heights, so there’s often a strip of wasted space at the side or above. Furniture we make is built to the room’s own sizes, so it can run to the ceiling and fill the width.
It’s worth being honest about cost: flat-pack is usually cheaper to buy. Bespoke makes more sense where the room is awkward, the space is valuable or you want the furniture to look built in.
Alcove units for homes in Upton
The biggest shares of homes in the neighbourhood around Upton were built between 1919 and 1939 (about 40%) and between 1945 and 1972 (about 21%), based on the Valuation Office Agency’s 2025 council tax data. For carpentry, the era of a house is a useful clue to how square its rooms are and what its walls are made of. There are 12 entries on the National Heritage List within half a mile of the centre of Upton. You can check whether a particular building is listed on Historic England’s list. Each London borough runs its own parking controls, and Bexley is no exception. If parking near you is controlled, a visitor permit or a bay suspension may be needed, and the council arranges suspensions, often with notice. Tell us what the parking is like at the measuring visit.
If you live near Danson Park, alcove units can be planned to frame a window with a view rather than block it. Living in a block of flats near Bexleyheath station? Then alcove units are made in sections sized for the stairs, landings and lift, so measuring the route matters as much as measuring the room.
Upton is part of the London Borough of Bexley, about 2 miles south-west of Sidcup. Anywhere in Upton, the process is the same: a design visit, a written quote, furniture made at our workshop and fitting in your home. We list Upton among 27 places we cover in Bexley.
Design visits and fitting in DA6, DA7 and DA16 work the same way as everywhere else we cover. Whether you live on a street such as Lion Road, Upton Road and Freta Road or on one nearby, we can visit to measure up for alcove units. If you’re just outside Upton, we also cover Bexleyheath (1 mile east), Crook Log (1 mile west), Blendon (1 mile south-west), Bexley (1 mile south) and Welling (1 mile west). Elsewhere in Bexley, we also cover Sidcup (2 miles south-west), Erith (2 miles north-east), Belvedere (2 miles north-east), Northumberland Heath (2 miles north-east), Lessness Heath (2 miles north) and Albany Park (3 miles south-west).
Landmarks near Upton
In Upton, that includes homes near Bexleyheath Academy, St Catherine's Catholic School and The Golden Lion pub and the streets around them. There’s a railway station in Upton itself: Bexleyheath station. Well-known places in the area include Broadway Shopping Centre (0.5 miles south-east) and Bexley Museum (1.3 miles south-east).
Also near Upton
What else we make in Upton
Bespoke alcove units or ready-made?
Off-the-shelf furniture comes in set heights, which usually leaves a gap above. We can take a bespoke unit to the ceiling or stop it at the picture rail, whichever looks right in your room. Off-the-shelf units come in set widths, so a run along a wall normally ends with a gap, so fitted furniture is made to the wall’s own length. It can also go up to the ceiling rather than stopping short.
Your quote is written for your room once we’ve visited and measured. Size, the number of doors and drawers and the internal fittings make the biggest difference to the price.
Why choose Bespoke Carpentry in Upton
- Built around your room
- Work across the whole of London
- Scribed to uneven walls
- Made in moisture-resistant MDF and birch plywood
See our comparison of bespoke and off-the-shelf and what to look for in a quote.
Flats, blocks and rented homes
In conversions and newer blocks, many internal walls are timber or metal stud with plasterboard. Fixings are chosen to suit whatever the wall is made of, after checking the walls at the design visit.
If you live in a flat, getting the furniture in is planned from the start. We measure the stairs, landings, lift and doorways not just the room, so the furniture can be made in sections that fit through without a struggle.
Is it time for alcove units?
A busy family living room is another reason. Toys, games, paperwork and gadgets need somewhere to go, and cupboards with doors keep them out of sight. The shelves above can then stay tidy.
Requests we hear often include:
- Bare alcoves beside the fireplace
- Room to work in an alcove
- Units that sit well with original features
- Space for a growing book collection
If you live in a period home close to Trinity Baptist Church, picture rails and cornices give alcove units a line to finish at.
Questions to ask before you hire anyone
- Have they thought about parking near you?
- Are the boards named, such as MDF or plywood?
- How doors and drawers are fitted
- Real projects you can actually look at
How fitting day works
There isn’t much for you to do on fitting day. Someone needs to let us in, and it helps to have the room cleared beforehand, as agreed at the design visit. After that, it is over to us: the floors are covered, the sections come in and the fitting begins. 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. Some interwar and suburban streets have driveways, which can make unloading easier, so let us know at the measuring visit. Otherwise, details of permits or nearby bays help. Doorways, stairs and floors are covered on the way in.
- 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, checking how far the walls are out of square.
- You receive a quote in writing setting out the units, materials and finish, for you to read through at your own pace.
- The units are made at our workshop, 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. Then we go through the doors and shelves with you.
Before we arrive
- Clear the area where the furniture is going
- Clear the walls of pictures and shelves
- Let us know where the boiler and meters are
Starting with a design visit
Photos 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, along with rough sizes. To share them, fill in our short enquiry form, and we’ll arrange a design visit.