house is getting a bit ‘tired’ and decided to get rid of the old pine wardrobes (theyre so last year….) and stick something a bit smarter in, maybe sliding doors too.

after the success of my shed/gazebo a couple of years ago, building my own doesnt faze me *cough* with a little help from here of course *cough*.

question is……is it worth it, or can you buy same quality for around the same money?  a quick look at the price of sliding wardrobe doors scares me, so it looks like its going to cost more than i expected whichever way i go.

ill also have to decide ‘against the wall vs over the bed’ type units.  over the bed makes more sense space-wise and i could also bring it round the corner too for more storage.

i spose im leaning more towards making it all myself so i fit it exactly how i want, but whats your thoughts and experiences?  nightmare hanging doors?  never do it again or easier than you thought?

thanks

Pretty simple. I knocked through from an adjoining room and made double-sized wardrobes in our main bedroom. Shelving was all just as I wanted it and buying/fitting sliding doors was easy. It maximises use of the available space.

Buy the doors first and make the cupboards fit the doors, basic framework, hinged doors if rom big enough, sliding doors if not, DIY.COM ot Howdens for sliding doors, avoid mirror doors unless your a body builder type, as fat and chubby or aged and wrinkled look terrible when you get up  in the morning

I did some.  Wall to wall floor to ceiling 3.5m x 3 m.  I simply used planed studding and cheapo house doors – 6x full size doors along the bottom and half doors for the upper part.  Looks fine with them shut but I didn’t get a good finish inside – mainly dues to lazyness

Be careful of external walls (condensation etc) and in my experience nobody keeps overhead cupboards for long 🙂

My high cupboards are where all my camping kit is kept.

Pretty simple. I knocked through from an adjoining room and made double-sized wardrobes in our main bedroom. Shelving was all just as I wanted it and buying/fitting sliding doors was easy.

thats what i like to hear……

Buy the doors first and make the cupboards fit the doors, basic framework, hinged doors if room big enough, sliding doors if not,

yeah makes sense.  which are easiest to fit, hinged or sliding?

I simply used planed studding and cheapo house doors

haha, ghetto wardrobes!  dont think she’ll let me get away with that 🙂

Be careful of external walls (condensation etc) and in my experience nobody keeps overhead cupboards for long

id just been thinking about the condensation issue, we do get it quite bad in the house and we’ve had stuff in our wardrobes go green before if we havent used it for a long time.  not sure what the answer is there….. and im still undecided about the ‘over bed vs wall only’ issue.  my mam and dad used to have the ‘over the bed’ style and theres just a part of me that thinks theyre maybe a bit dated now.  may be wrong tho….

As i do stuff like this for a job,  cheap internal  paneled doors 3 inch hinges per door, Batton on floor, then mark width of each door on batton, allow for a frame, 3 x 2 cls works well, for upright and cross pieces., now either make a frame  and secure to walls and ceiling, or fix base to floor and build up from there use a long spirit level, and as a cheat, fit a pelmet at ceiling height, about 6 inches deep, then hang doors below it, 78 inch high doors, will be off the floor, fill this space with a piece of contiboard wall to wall, makes a well for storage of crap, hanging rails inside or shelves, as for external walls line with 1 inch thick polystyrene, and   over clad with, mdf or plywood,paint white inside to make it light looking.

Mirrors on inside of doors are also good, local glazier can cut and deliver them.

Sliding doors wear, tracks get bent on floor,wheels fall off, and you cant get parts etc.

The pax modular from Ikea saved me a load of work and looks good.

This is where I started two a few months ago, after spending a week or two watching youtube videos I ended up with a shopping list for tools over a couple of grand.

So I am still thinking about it. But I also need to do the kitchen, and I also fancy building some furniture so I will probably go for it anyway.

You could build a really good built in wardrobe with just a few hand tools. If you think you need a couple grands worth of tools (power tools I presume) you’d be mistaken.

Yes OP it is worth having a go yourself. Have a look online to see how it’s done, make up a plan and keep it simple. If you go for sliding doors then invest in quality hardware so it lasts a long time, there is some cheap garbage out there. There is nothing wrong with just using normal internal doors though, either full size or bi fold doors if space restricted.

It’s also worth looking on eBay for built in wardrobe bits.  We’ve done this twice now and it worked out well both times.

The most recent buy was 8 doors, with mirrors, hinges, rails, handles, framing and a load of conti. This was basically brand new as it had gone in a new build house with the wrong colour wardrobe in the wrong bedrooms; and the developers just replaced the installed stuff with new. It cost us something like £120.

Installation isn’t terribly hard, just plan out everything with the bits you have, and away you go.

And as others have said, it’s not necessary to have a lot of tools. A cordless drill/driver is handy, but other than you really only need a decent saw, a spirit level, and possibly a hammer or mallet.

Project – thats interesting ‘cos that is pretty much what this amateur did apart from with the high ceilings I had room for a half a door above them.

I’m half way through building some alcove cabinets, never made anything like this before. Once they are glossed up im sure theyll look ok. Only used a mitre saw and a drill but easily could have just used a hand saw.

We moved into a new build, with no bedroom storage, so I bought the Ikea Pax tall ones. Went together easily, seem well made. The top sections are perfect for camping stuff. From experience though, I made sure they went on to internal walls, to avoid condensation. About £1k for 8 doubles.

Pax are ace, 2.2m high too, loads of room in them.

Surely, ‘is it worth it?’ is a question only you can answer?

How much is your time worth? Do you have the time? Are you confident you can do a satisfactory job? Do you have the  money available to stump up for a fitted wardrobe done by someone else? What exactly do you require? Do you have space for doors that open out, or would sliding doors be a better use of space….?
etc….

When I was re-decorating our bedroom, we decided to get fitted sliding doors. We wanted to maximise the space so wanted something floor to ceiling & we found a company that offered a good solution for a reasonable price. We ended up getting sliding doors in a walnut veneer with a narrow mirrored band across the middle. The inside is lined to our specification with a mix of rails, cubby shelves & drawers. Ours goes almost the full width of our bedroom (minus the door) and I think cost £1900 fitted.
We got them from  gliderobes.com and went for a mid-spec sliding door system. Sure, that’s not cheap but places like Sharps were talking about £4k+ for a more basic wardrobe.

They are really nice. I used the configurator to get the quote & then the fitter (a local guy that they contract in) came over before the order was cut to check the dimensions.

Can you build a stud wall?  Can you fit a door frame and hang an internal door?

That’s the way I’d be doing it.  As above, bifolds if you haven’t room for full sized doors to open.

Innards are pretty simple with melamine-faced boards – One central shelf section, with ranging rails each side.  You can probably just buy the central self section for a couple of quid from B&Q.  If you build it yourself, Kreg do a good jig for drilling holes for adjustable shelf pins.

The pax modular from Ikea saved me a load of work and looks good.

Our old flat had them, took a couple of afternoons to put it all together. Would have likely taken me weeks to build something half as good.

3 paxs here – without doors as it just a lot less faff getting to everthing.  It all adds up pretty quick cost wise so not really a cheap option

havent had a look at ikea stuff in the flesh, we dont have one local, but we saw some we like the look of on ebay and saw the showroom was only a couple of miles away. so…… just been and had a look. wife really likes them, and yep theyre fine i spose, im just not convinced tho. these are the two we’d plump for, one wider than the other, and not as many mirrors as these…..

now these are coming in at 8 or £900 i think, and if i could get doors cheap enough to make it worthwhile id go DIY for cost saving purposes. however, i just cant find doors cheap enough to make me think DIY is the way to go.

DIY, id go wall to floor so a little more internal space and the inside would be exactly to spec. and it may be sliiiiiightly cheaper. and if i bought from the shop id still have to build from flat-pack so still may be a ballache.

Shop bought, flatpack will be slightly easier than cutting to size, but more expensive overall, height will leave a smallish gap at the top as in the photos ^^^ which will be dead, dust-collecting space.

hmmmmm……. cant decide. wotcha reckon?

At what looks to be the equivalent of five single wardrobes. I’d get rid of some stuff.