Westminster · London
Under-Stairs Storage in Chinatown
Under-stairs storage for your home in Chinatown: pull-out drawers, cupboards and coat storage under the stairs. We visit to measure and discuss the design, make the furniture in our workshop and fit it.
- A meter or fuse board buried behind clutter
- A hallway crowded with coats and shoes
- Cleaning things with no proper home
Under-stairs storage in Chinatown
Under-stairs storage in Chinatown: what you get
Where the space under the stairs opens onto a room, a compact desk can fit beneath it. A built-in desk with shelving and drawers can turn the space into a quiet corner for paperwork. If you’d like a socket or a light, your electrician fits it and we plan the furniture around it. We’ll look at whether it suits your stairs when we visit in Chinatown. If you are living with a meter or fuse board buried behind clutter and open space under the stairs that collects clutter, under-stairs cupboards made from moisture-resistant MDF and birch plywood, finished by spray or by hand can solve it.
Ceilings and floors in homes built before 1919 are rarely level, and a large share of the homes around Chinatown date from then. Under-stairs cupboards are scribed to the walls and levelled on site so doors, lids and drawers run true. Original skirting and mouldings are met neatly.
Once you’ve read the quote and decided to go ahead, the furniture is made in our workshop. It describes the design, the materials and the finish agreed at the visit, so every detail can be checked first.
- Location
- Chinatown (W1F, W1D, W1T)
- Area
- Westminster
- Price
- Quoted for your room
- To begin
- Design visit, then a written quote
- Making
- In our workshop, then fitted in your home
- Boards and paint
- MDF and plywood, painted to order
- Fitting days
- Weekdays; Saturdays on request
- Contact
- The contact form
- Page updated
- 27 October 2026
Why people ask for under-stairs storage in Chinatown
Others are looking for a small place to work. Where the space is open to a room, a built-in desk with shelves can fit there neatly. It’s a modest workspace, well suited to a laptop and the household paperwork.
Here’s what under-stairs storage can help with:
- A sloping corner nobody can reach
- A tired under-stairs cupboard that stands out
- Space under the stairs that’s hard to use
- Nowhere to put coats, shoes and bags
For an older house near St Anne's Church, pull-out drawers can reach right to the back of a deep under-stairs space.
Before you hire any carpenter
- Whether they can show you real projects they’ve done
- How they deal with uneven walls and floors
- How they’ll get the furniture into the room
- Which parts of the job need an electrician or a plumber
Pricing under-stairs storage in Chinatown
Every room is different, so every job is quoted on its own. This is what makes the difference:
- What goes inside: rails, shelves, drawers and dividers
- How easy it is to get the furniture into the room
- Parking and unloading on your street
- How square the room is
What goes inside matters as much as the outside: drawers take more making than shelves, and each rail, divider or pull-out adds to the work. At the design visit, we work out what you need inside, then set it out in the quote.
Helping us understand the room
There is no need for exact sizes or plans. Just send what you can:
- Anything fixed to the wall that the furniture needs to work around
- Photos of the whole wall or room, including the floor and ceiling
- Any ideas or images you’ve saved
- Approximate measurements of the space
Photos help us understand the room before we visit. A few pictures showing the walls, the corners and where the ceiling meets them tell us a lot about the space, especially with rough measurements. To send them over, drop us a line using the contact form, and we’ll suggest a time for a design visit.
Under-stairs storage in Chinatown: local notes
The biggest shares of homes in the neighbourhood around Chinatown were built before 1919 (about 50%) and since 2000 (about 23%), on the Valuation Office Agency’s council tax figures for 2025. Knowing roughly when a home was built helps, because walls and fixings change from one era to the next. Chinatown is partly covered by the Leicester Square Conservation Area, according to Historic England’s records. Conservation area controls are largely about how buildings look from outside, and fitted furniture inside a house doesn’t normally need planning permission. The council can confirm if you are not sure. Streets close to central London are often narrow and busy, with loading bays in short supply, so the route from the van to your door is planned beforehand, particularly for larger pieces.
Benjamin Franklin House, about 0.4 miles south-east, is one of the historic houses in the wider area. For a period home anywhere nearby, under-stairs cupboards are scribed to walls and stair strings that are rarely straight. If you live in a flat close to Tottenham Court Road station, the route in is measured along with the room itself, and the sections are sized to fit it.
Chinatown is part of the City of Westminster, about 1 mile west of City of Westminster. Chinatown is part of the area we cover, and the process is the same everywhere we work. Our Westminster coverage includes Chinatown and the places around it.
Here we cover the W1F, W1D and W1T postcode area for under-stairs storage. Whether you live on a street such as Duck Lane, Drury Lane and Bruton Lane or on one nearby, we can arrange a design visit for under-stairs storage. Main roads around Chinatown include the A4 and A301, and we plan where the van can stop before fitting day. Nearby, we also make under-stairs storage in Soho (1 mile north), St James's (1 mile south), West End (1 mile north-east), Seven Dials (1 mile north-east) and St Giles (1 mile north-east). Other parts of Westminster we cover include Paddington Green (2 miles west), Paddington (2 miles west), Lisson Grove (2 miles north-west), Westbourne (3 miles west), Little Venice (2 miles west) and Westbourne Green (3 miles west). Being one of the larger places in Westminster, Chinatown is covered for all of our fitted furniture.
What’s near Chinatown
Our area takes in the homes around LITE Regal International School, Harris Westminster Sixth Form and Waxy O'Connor's pub, among other places. There is a railway station in Chinatown itself: Tottenham Court Road station. Well-known places in the area include Leverian collection (a few minutes’ walk south-east) and Kingly Court (less than half a mile west). Green spaces nearby include St. James's Park Lake and Ludgate Hill.
Bespoke under-stairs storage or ready-made?
Flat-pack furniture is designed to be easy to carry home and quick to assemble. Ours is designed for one staircase and built in our workshop to suit it, with birch plywood drawer boxes that hold screws well and carry weight. Which suits you depends on how much you want from the space. Tall ceilings in older homes leave a band of empty wall above standard furniture, wasting space that could hold things you rarely use. Fitted furniture can go all the way up.
Every room is priced on its own, because size, layout and finish change from job to job. Spray painting and hand painting are different processes, which affects the cost. You’ll see the figure in your written quote, after the design visit.
What you get with us
- Built in our workshop and fitted in your home
- Saturdays by arrangement
- Scribed to uneven walls
- Designed for the room you have
See how bespoke compares with ready-made or what to look for in a quote.
Neighbourhoods near Chinatown
More for homes in Chinatown
FAQs: under-stairs storage in Chinatown
Can you make under-stairs storage for a home in Chinatown?
Yes. Chinatown is one of the places we work, along with the rest of Westminster and London. You can tell us about the room on our contact form to arrange a design visit.
Do you cover homes near Tottenham Court Road station?
Yes. We cover all of Westminster and the rest of London. You can use our contact form to arrange a design visit.
How long is the fitting for under-stairs storage?
How long the fitting takes depends on the size of the space and the design, and we confirm the fitting days in your quote. Drawers, doors and carcasses are all made in the workshop before we arrive. Saturday fitting is possible by arrangement.
What if the wall is cold or damp?
An outside wall can be colder and damper than an inside one, so ventilation behind and inside the furniture helps to avoid condensation. If there’s damp, it should be sorted before anything is fitted.
What is under-stairs storage made from?
We use moisture-resistant MDF and birch plywood. MDF is stable and takes paint well, so it suits the doors and fronts, and birch plywood is strong, so it suits drawer boxes and carcasses. The finish is spray-painted or hand-painted.
Is it possible to have a desk built under the stairs?
It depends on the height and how open the space is. At the design visit we will say whether a desk makes sense there. Where it works, it makes a neat spot for a laptop and paperwork.
How fitting works for under-stairs storage
The last stage of the day is the finish. With a spray finish from the workshop, there’s usually only filling and touching up to do in the room; if you chose hand painting, that can be done in the room once the furniture is fitted. Either way, the finish is the one set out in your quote. Scribing is done on site, which means some cutting in the room or close by, so a clear area to work in near the room helps. Dust is kept down and cleared up as we go. Where the finish is hand-painted, it can be done after the pieces are in.
- It starts with a few details from you about the space.
- We come to measure and talk through the design.
- A quote in writing follows.
- We make the drawers and cupboards in our workshop from moisture-resistant MDF and birch plywood.
- We fit it in your home with a spray-painted or hand-painted finish, and run through each drawer and door with you.
- New paint needs time to cure fully, so open and close things gently at first.
Preparing the room
- Tell us about any meters, fuse boards or boilers in the area
- Take down pictures, mirrors and shelves from the wall
- Make sure pets are kept safely away
Starting with a design visit
If you already have something in mind, tell us; if you don’t, that is fine, and we can work it out together. The design is talked through at the visit, once we have measured, and the written quote that follows sets it out. To start, fill in our short enquiry form.
Advice
Flats, leases and landlords
A lot of London’s terraced houses are now converted flats, and that often means a shared hallway and a tight turn on the stairs. We plan the size of each section around it, once we’ve measured the way in.
Some blocks ask for notice before trades arrive, often through a building manager or concierge. Lifts sometimes need to be booked, and the lift size helps decide how big each section can be. Mention it when you get in touch.