Dressing room bespoke wardrobes
Dressing room bespoke wardrobes
Author
Discussion

gareth h

Original Poster:

3,989 posts

246 months

Thursday 13th February
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Any experience of this? I’m having an extension built that will need custom wardrobes constructed to maximise the space, does anybody have experience of companies like Neville Johnson who seem to advertise everywhere!

aponting389

746 posts

194 months

Thursday 13th February
quotequote all
I have used Sharps for a project, built in wardrobes totalling around £14k. I believe they offer a similar product to NJ. Essentially, Sharps use chipboard for their carcasses and I'm led to believe NJ do too, they do however have some nice finishes and clever ways of working with the materials so that the finished product looks more high-end than the materials would suggest.

gareth h

Original Poster:

3,989 posts

246 months

Thursday 13th February
quotequote all
aponting389 said:
I have used Sharps for a project, built in wardrobes totalling around £14k. I believe they offer a similar product to NJ. Essentially, Sharps use chipboard for their carcasses and I'm led to believe NJ do too, they do however have some nice finishes and clever ways of working with the materials so that the finished product looks more high-end than the materials would suggest.
Thanks I’ll try Sharps too

sherman

14,464 posts

231 months

Thursday 13th February
quotequote all
Get plans from Neville Johnson.
Then go ask your local joiner to price upand see what it would cost.

andyxxx

1,290 posts

243 months

Thursday 13th February
quotequote all
sherman said:
go ask your local joiner to price up and see what it would cost.
We did just that and the end result looks great at under half the price. It saved us many thousands of £
(Edit - I drew the plans before inviting quotes)

Edited by andyxxx on Thursday 13th February 20:41

gareth h

Original Poster:

3,989 posts

246 months

Thursday 13th February
quotequote all
sherman said:
Get plans from Neville Johnson.
Then go ask your local joiner to price upand see what it would cost.
Interesting, thanks

hantsxlg

904 posts

248 months

Thursday 13th February
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Finding the good local joiner being the issue!!

There was a gentleman who posts on here who run on online fitted bedroom company. I think it might be this one..

https://www.online-bedrooms.co.uk/bedrooms/fitted-...

I have a similar need but making do with some ikea draws and hanging rails i bought from a shop fitment online store.

andyxxx

1,290 posts

243 months

Thursday 13th February
quotequote all
hantsxlg said:
Finding the good local joiner being the issue!!

.
Yes - finding any quality tradesmen can be a challenge.

I also priced up our walk-in wardrobe using the company you listed and was surprised at how expensive it was going to be (and you still have to fit it or find a tradesman)

You can get a ok result with IKEA if you are good at joinery, but it really is not a patch on a bespoke wardrobe that the OP is asking about.

If you really are good at joinery you could purchase the wood from Egger (who have a vast range of colours/laminates) and build it from scratch.

JimM169

698 posts

138 months

Friday 14th February
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How bespoke are the like of Sharps etc, I'd always assumed they used standard carcasses etc and just had some software that made best use of the space available? Are you saying that if there was a gap of 570mm that they'd actually make a wardrobe of 570mm or would it be a 500mm wardrobe with a 70mm fill piece

loughran

3,054 posts

152 months

Friday 14th February
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I've had a couple of conversations with people wanting dressing rooms recently.

To me a dressing room has always been a room/area with the carcasses of wardrobes set out with rails and shelves and drawers but with no doors giving a free view and easy access to all your clothes etc.

These two customers had both previously had open plan dressing rooms but this time they wanted doors on their wardrobes in their dressing rooms. Dust was the problem. Dust on the shoulders of dark suits, dust on dresses, dust gathering everywhere and they wouldn't be going open plan again.

Also they'd found that having all their clothes on show was a good idea in theory, it looks great in magazines... but looks more like overstuffed charity shop rails in real life. biggrin

Just my musings.

Jeremy-75qq8

1,408 posts

108 months

Friday 14th February
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We have doors on. Without would be a nightmare

Our whole house wardrobes etc are reskinned ikea pax. The internals are good and the whole exterior and doors are custom using board from cutwrights.

You would never know any were ikea. It is very cost effective.

DonkeyApple

63,108 posts

185 months

Friday 14th February
quotequote all
loughran said:
I've had a couple of conversations with people wanting dressing rooms recently.

To me a dressing room has always been a room/area with the carcasses of wardrobes set out with rails and shelves and drawers but with no doors giving a free view and easy access to all your clothes etc.

These two customers had both previously had open plan dressing rooms but this time they wanted doors on their wardrobes in their dressing rooms. Dust was the problem. Dust on the shoulders of dark suits, dust on dresses, dust gathering everywhere and they wouldn't be going open plan again.

Also they'd found that having all their clothes on show was a good idea in theory, it looks great in magazines... but looks more like overstuffed charity shop rails in real life. biggrin

Just my musings.
Yup. Just having shelves on show is crap. It's up there with crapping cupboards in terms of punters' idea of classy. Just ends up looking like a retail unit.

andyxxx

1,290 posts

243 months

Friday 14th February
quotequote all
loughran said:
I've had a couple of conversations with people wanting dressing rooms recently.

To me a dressing room has always been a room/area with the carcasses of wardrobes set out with rails and shelves and drawers but with no doors giving a free view and easy access to all your clothes etc.

These two customers had both previously had open plan dressing rooms but this time they wanted doors on their wardrobes in their dressing rooms. Dust was the problem. Dust on the shoulders of dark suits, dust on dresses, dust gathering everywhere and they wouldn't be going open plan again.

Also they'd found that having all their clothes on show was a good idea in theory, it looks great in magazines... but looks more like overstuffed charity shop rails in real life. biggrin

Just my musings.
I think a dressing room is often as you describe it (open, with no doors)

Ours has a bank of wardrobes with doors and a whole section without doors.
My wife spends a lot of time messing around in there! She loves it.

It has been completed over a year and have not noticed an issue with dusty clothes – but I could see how that could be an issue for some.
I also have a walk in wardrobe (actually a small room (about 2x4m)) which is just hanging formed with metal poles and I don’t notice an issue with dust on my suits, jackets & shirts.

I guess if there is not enough space for the clothes within, an open plan wardrobe would look a mess.


DonkeyApple

63,108 posts

185 months

Friday 14th February
quotequote all
andyxxx said:
sherman said:
go ask your local joiner to price up and see what it would cost.
We did just that and the end result looks great at under half the price. It saved us many thousands of £
(Edit - I drew the plans before inviting quotes)

Edited by andyxxx on Thursday 13th February 20:41
And supports a local business.

Zetec-S

6,481 posts

109 months

Friday 14th February
quotequote all
We had a fitted wardrobe from Sharps installed in a wide alcove about 10 years ago. It is custom built to fit the space, and other than a minor issue a few years ago where the sliding doors got stuck (which was due to movement in the house, rather than the wardrobe) I have no complaints about quality.

What I will say is I'm not sure I'd use them again, purely due to the sales tactics. We booked them in for a no-obligation quote, the guy came out and went through a few ideas and options, priced up the one we liked. Once we removed our jaws from the floor he started to talk about their latest promotions, managers discount (can't remember if this involved a "phone-call" or not). In the end it went down from about £8k to £3k, but that price was on the basis of signing the contract on the day.

Zippee

13,781 posts

250 months

Friday 14th February
quotequote all
We effectively turned a small bedroom into our (wife's) dressing room. Sharps etc were a fortune and whilst they looked nice there was a lot of blanks where they just covered spaces their standard units didn't fit.
Used a local carpenter in the end who built us a bespoke unit, utilising all the space, for a third of the price.

razor11

141 posts

265 months

Friday 14th February
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...Echoing the comments above:

Neville wanted an eye-watering 70+k for fitting out a medium-sized dressing room......even heard echoes of 'manager's early-bird-sign-now discount'. Truly ridiculous price.

Getting a far superior product (door in frame, etc.) from a local joinery company for waaaaay less. They are happy, we are happy, I'm getting brownie points.

dmsims

7,212 posts

283 months

Friday 14th February
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Some of these prices for chipboard are absolutely batst mental


DonkeyApple

63,108 posts

185 months

Friday 14th February
quotequote all
Zippee said:
We effectively turned a small bedroom into our (wife's) dressing room. Sharps etc were a fortune and whilst they looked nice there was a lot of blanks where they just covered spaces their standard units didn't fit.
Used a local carpenter in the end who built us a bespoke unit, utilising all the space, for a third of the price.
And if you want it done the Sharps way you can just buy inexpensive carcasses and hire a local joiner to make the fascia blanks and doors.

I suspect the true edge that the likes of Sharps have lies in their easy financing solutions as much as anything. Doing the job for less money will often entail having that money to spare.

craigjm

19,366 posts

216 months

Friday 14th February
quotequote all
In my recent renovation I looked at sharps, Hammond, Neville Johnson and a couple of local places plus a local carpenter.

The first three were all very similar and as much as possible use standard carcasses and fillers. I found sharps very pushy and Neville Johnson a bit snooty. Hammond provided a good balance, we’re happy to use handles the customer supplied and were very open about the final price none of this call the manager stuff. He gave me the price from the calculator and then just said he can reduce that price by x amount and that was the price. No buy today or anything just next 14 days which is fair enough.

The local places along a similar vein were basically reselling someone else’s carcasses and doors and then fitting them and with one of them they said something could be done when it clearly couldn’t

The carpenter gave two prices using solid wood or MDF.

I went with Hammond because they could do what I wanted at the best price quality balance. It was a typical situation where standard stuff with a few tweaks would work rather than having to go full bespoke with the carpenter.

The funny thing was the fitting. They outsource the fitting to local people and who should turn up to fit… the carpenter who quoted himself hehe he said that a lot of their fitters are people like him filling in gaps in their diary.

The stuff fits well and looks great so job done

If I was doing a dressing room I would definitely have doors