Bromley · London
Under-stairs storage in Shortlands, Bromley
In Shortlands, we design under-stairs storage around the room you actually have. Your under-stairs cupboard is designed at a visit to your home and made in our workshop.
- A hallway crowded with coats and shoes
- An old cupboard door that does not suit the hall
- Space under the stairs that is hard to use
Need under-stairs storage in Shortlands?
Why bespoke in Shortlands?
Off-the-shelf storage isn’t designed around a meter or a fuse board. Put in the wrong place, it can block the access meter readers and engineers need. Bespoke storage is planned around them from the start. If a house has been extended or knocked through, the new walls and the old ones may not line up, which shows up against standard furniture. Fitted pieces are scribed to both.
Prices are quoted for your room, once we’ve measured and talked through the design. Bigger pieces use more board and take longer to make and fit, so size is the starting point. Doors, drawers, internal fittings and the finish make up most of the rest.
Why choose us
- Work across the whole of London
- Workshop-made and fitted by us
- A spray or hand-painted finish
- Edges scribed to follow your walls
Take a look at bespoke vs off-the-shelf or what to look for in a quote.
Under-stairs storage in Shortlands: what you get
Some under-stairs spaces are open enough for a small desk. 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 Shortlands. Typical reasons to get in touch are a low corner too deep to reach into and storage that doesn’t match the hallway; the furniture is made from moisture-resistant MDF and birch plywood, finished by spray or by hand.
In an area where interwar homes or semis make up much of the housing, as around Shortlands, loft conversions are common, and they leave low eaves and sloping ceilings. Fitted storage can make use of the eaves, the bay or the hall. We build storage in lofts that are already converted or boarded.
Materials are named in the quote: moisture-resistant MDF, birch plywood or both, depending on the design. It also says how the furniture will be finished: spray painted or hand painted.
- Location
- Shortlands (BR2, BR1, BR3)
- Borough
- Bromley
- Price
- Quoted for your room
- How it starts
- A design visit: we measure and talk it through
- Where it’s made
- In our workshop, then fitted in your home
- Made from
- MDF and plywood, painted to order
- Working days
- Weekdays; Saturdays on request
- Enquiries
- The contact form
- Updated
- 27 October 2026
What it costs
When we put a quote together, we consider:
- Walls and floors that are out of level or out of square
- The finish: spray painted or hand painted
- Where a van can park, like a permit bay or a bay suspension
- How easy it is to get the furniture into the room
Parking is part of the price picture in London. The boroughs run controlled parking zones across much of the city, so a van may need a visitor permit, a paid bay or a bay suspension. It is useful to talk about parking at the measuring visit.
Before the design visit
The more you can tell us at the start, the better the design visit goes. It is useful to include:
- A few photos of the space, taken from the doorway and from each corner
- Rough measurements: width, height and depth
- The type of home and how the room is reached
- What you’d like to store or use the space for
The quote is built from the design visit. We take full measurements, see how true the walls and floors are and work through the design together. Afterwards, we send a written quote, so you can take your time with it. To book one, use our contact form.
How it’s made
Pull-out drawers
Pull-out drawers bring the deep, low end of the space within reach. Each one is sized for what it will hold. Many designs use a run of drawers stepping down with the stairs.
Plinths and scribe strips
Scribe strips are trimmed to follow the wall, closing the gap a standard unit would leave. They’re one reason fitted storage looks built in. At floor level, the plinth hides any slope in the floor.
Questions from Shortlands
Will a conservation area stop me having under-stairs storage fitted in Shortlands?
Not normally. Conservation area controls are largely about how buildings look from outside, so fitted furniture inside a house does not normally need planning permission. If your home is listed, works inside that affect its character can require listed building consent, so check with the council first. The council’s planning or conservation team can tell you if in doubt.
Can you fit furniture in a home close to Shortlands station?
Yes. We cover all of Bromley and the rest of London. To get started, you can drop us a line using the contact form with a few details about the room.
Can you build storage around a gas meter or fuse board?
Yes. The design keeps a clear way to the meter or fuse board, often with a door of its own. Access matters for readings and safety checks, so we design around it.
Do I need to be at home on fitting day?
We need someone to let us in. It is good to have someone there at the end to look over the work with us.
What happens when you come to measure?
We take full measurements, look at the walls and floors and work through the design together. Access and parking are worth talking about too.
Can you fit a small desk under the stairs?
Often, yes, where the space opens onto a room and there’s enough height at one end. We can build a desk with shelves and drawers to suit the space. New sockets or lights are for your electrician, and we leave a route for the cables.
Nearby places to Shortlands
Also in Shortlands
How fitting day works
On the morning of the fitting, the first job is covering the floors and protecting the way in from the front door. Next, we carry in the sections built in our workshop, one at a time. The time the fitting takes depends on how much storage you want under the stairs, and the fitting days are agreed in your quote. Semis and detached houses often have a front path or a side gate, which can make carrying in easier. We measure the path, any steps and the front door as part of the route. Floors, stairs and doorways are protected on the way in, and the sections are assembled in place.
- You let us know about the space under the stairs.
- We come to measure and go through the design.
- We send a written quote covering the design, materials and finish.
- 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.
- Treat the fresh paintwork gently while it cures; a hand-painted finish is easy to touch up later.
Preparing the room
- Tell us about any meters, fuse boards or boilers in the area
- Mention any parking restrictions on your street
- Clear the area where the furniture is going
Ask for a quote
If you already have something in mind, tell us; if you do not, that is fine, and we can work it out together. The design is talked through at the visit, once we’ve measured, and the written quote then sets it out. To arrange a visit, tell us about the room on our contact form.
Read more
Under-stairs storage in Shortlands: local notes
In the area around Shortlands, the largest groups of homes date from between 1919 and 1939 (about 29%) and between 1945 and 1972 (about 26%), according to Valuation Office Agency council tax figures (2025). The age of a home tells us a lot about its walls, floors and ceilings, and so about how under-stairs cupboards are fixed and fitted. Within a mile of the centre of Shortlands, 7 conservation areas are recorded by Historic England. England has around 10,000 in all, and their controls are largely about how buildings look from outside, so fitted furniture inside a house does not normally need planning permission. About 45% of households in the neighbourhood around Shortlands live in detached or semi-detached houses, based on Census 2021. In a semi or detached house, a driveway, where there is one, can make unloading easier.
If you live near Church House Gardens, living near green space often means muddy boots, bikes and outdoor kit, and under-stairs cupboards can give those things a place. Near listed buildings like Corner House, about 0.5 miles west of the centre of Shortlands, older homes may keep original joinery that under-stairs cupboards can be designed around. If your own home is listed, check with the council before fixing into original features. If you live in a flat close to Shortlands station, the route in is measured not just the room, and the sections are sized to fit it.
Shortlands is about 4 miles east of Orpington, within the London Borough of Bromley. From period terraces to newer flats in Shortlands, we measure the room as it is and design around it. Our Bromley coverage includes Shortlands.
Design visits and fitting in BR2, BR1 and BR3 work the same way as everywhere else we cover. We cover homes on streets like Hayes Lane, Stone Road and Hayes Road, along with the roads around them, whether you want under-stairs storage or another piece made for the room. If you are just outside Shortlands, we also cover Eden Park (1 mile south-west), Hayes (2 miles south), Bromley Common (2 miles south-east), West Wickham (2 miles south-west) and Southborough (2 miles east). We also make under-stairs storage in nearby places like Orpington (4 miles east), Beckenham (2 miles north-west), St Mary Cray (5 miles east), Chislehurst (3 miles north-east), Penge (3 miles north-west) and Anerley (3 miles west).
Around Shortlands
Our area takes in the homes around Holy Trinity College Bromley, Langley Park School for Girls and The Richmal Crompton pub. The nearest railway station is Shortlands station, roughly 0.5 miles north of the centre. A little further out are Bromley Hospital (0.7 miles east) and Bethlem Museum of the Mind (1.6 miles south-east).
DIY, flat-pack or bespoke
Bespoke work comes into its own 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.
Off-the-shelf cupboards come in fixed sizes, 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.