I could do with a rough idea of floor to ceiling cupboards, 2m tall and 1.8m of space, likely 4 opening doors. I expect it would be cheaper to ask a joiner to make out of ply/mdf than pay for kitchen units?

We also have an iffy sliding back door, 2.35w x 1.95h that we need to replace with (ideally) french doors with side panels. There seems a massive difference in price for DIY supply and me fit UPVC or wood – and recommendations of suppliers (to central Scotland) or what to look out for/avoid? It sees cheap is @£850, expensive @£2.5k.

We had floor to ceiling wardrobes made for about £1k each, bespoke. Pine doors, HW faced ply inside.

Have a look at DIY Kitchens online. We have a large double door’d kitchen cupboard in our bathroom which works very well and wasn’t hugely expensive – it looks fine as it matches everything else in there.

I could do with a rough idea of floor to ceiling cupboards, 2m tall and 1.8m of space, likely 4 opening doors. I expect it would be cheaper to ask a joiner to make out of ply/mdf than pay for kitchen units?

Not a joiner but I have recently fitted my kitchen and am in the planning stages of making cabinets for the chimney alcoves in my living room, similar size.

Cheapish ikea/wickes cabinets probably cheaper than the joiner, if you can fit them yourself and they make something to fit. Ikea widths are 20/40/60/80, wickes do 50/100s.

FWIW I’m planning to build in cupboards with bookcases above in 2 alcoves, about 1.2m wide each, 2m high ish, and I reckon it’ll swallow £300-£400 of materials (I already have tools), plus making the things. It’d be about that per-side to make out of kitchen cabinets (though much quicker to assemble, wouldn’t fit for me), and I reckon it’d be about double that per side to get someone to do it for me.

So footflaps 1k sounds reasonable.

Thank you all, a useful guide.

I was looking to make some floor to ceiling wardrobes. I ended up doing something else but If if was still doing them I was going to use something like this.

Sliding wardrobe doors

They can offer a lot of flexibilty with internal lay out give a lot of options for how they look and can be cheap.

something like this…You can be quite flexible with mounting and door materials.

B&Q do wardrobes with 450mm doors so that would fit nicely. I’ve fitted several of theirs and they’re not too bad. The backs are cardboard though, so I replaced them with MFC (e.g. Contiboard) cut to the exact size of the interior. B&Q will do that for you.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite as ugly as those sliding doors in the link.

For the back doors (in England) you need to get local authority approval which cost me about £150 if you don’t use someone who’s fensa registered.

Still cost me a quarter of what I was quoted to take a window out, cut wall down to for level and fit French windows even with that on top.

Each to there own BigJohn, I try to avoid the mass produced stuff that everyone has from B and Q etc, when i can.

@ wwaswas – that was going to be one of my phone calls tomorrow, to find out what Stirling building control were going to say about me fitting them. The suppliers I have looked at send a certificate of performance, so I am hoping that might do….

I had to provide that and the building control bloke wanted to inspect the wall after I took the old window or and again when the new one went in. He wanted to address the state of the lintel. Also he wanted insulated closers fitted around the frame. Wasn’t difficult but timing it so he could inspect and I could get the job done in a day was tricky.

As far as the french windows go I personally would fit them myself (assuming you’re competent) and not say a thing. If it ever comes down to you selling the house then as far as the buyer is concerned the doors were fitted pre 2002 when the building regs were introduced.
It’s pretty much just another tax for the government to cash in on, glazing companies have to pay a fortune to be Fensa registered and there’s no formal assessment (at least there wasn’t for the 5 years I worked for a window company) it was just a case of the company signing up.