Fitted Wardrobes Ilkeston
The useful thing about Ilkeston bedrooms is the ceiling height. The Victorian and Edwardian terraces that make up much of the town were built with proper head height, and a freestanding wardrobe stops about a metre short of it.
That metre is the argument for fitted. Floor-to-ceiling units take it back as a full extra shelf — the one that ends up holding suitcases, spare bedding and everything currently in the loft.
We build wardrobes to the room across Ilkeston from our showroom on Derby Road in Stapleford, four miles away on the A6096.
Chimney breasts and sloping floors
Every one of these terraces has a chimney breast in at least one bedroom, with an alcove either side that is almost never the same width as its twin. Two made-to-measure units make both properly usable.
The hillside matters here too. Ilkeston is built across a slope and the older houses have settled with it, so bedroom floors frequently run out of level towards the front of the house. That is workable, but it is a real consideration if you want sliding doors, because the track fixes to both the floor and the ceiling and wants both reasonably true. Better found at survey than on fitting day — which is easier when we are twelve minutes away.
The box room
The third bedroom over the stairs in these houses defeats standard furniture. A fitted run down one wall with sideways hanging — rail running front to back rather than across — plus drawers below turns it from a junk room into a usable single bedroom. It holds less than full-depth hanging. It holds far more than what is there now.
Kirk Hallam and Cotmanhay
The interwar and postwar semis are a different proposition — lower ceilings, regular rooms, straighter walls, level floors. Simpler and generally quicker to fit, with less scribing and fewer specials. Front bedrooms in these usually have room for hinged doors, which give the full opening and the full depth.
The long runs of Victorian and Edwardian terracing here give bedrooms that are narrow and tall rather than square — small floor area with a metre of unused height above head level.
A sliding door needs a true, level track to run properly. In a terrace on a hillside the opening frequently is not square, so the frame is set plumb and the difference scribed out at the edges.
Twelve minutes to Derby Road. Close enough to come and slide a door before choosing one.
Fitted Wardrobes Ilkeston
Sliding or hinged
Sliding needs no clearance in front, which suits the smaller back bedrooms. It costs about 100mm of depth to the track assembly and shows you half the interior at a time.
Hinged gives the whole opening and full depth, and needs roughly 600mm of swing.
Either way, depth matters: a coat hanger is about 450mm across the shoulders, so you want around 550mm internal for the door to close without pressing on the clothes — 600mm including the carcass.
Doors
Coloured glass sliding doors — yellow, aqua and green among them — plus framed and mirrored.
Mirrored works well in the smaller north-facing back bedrooms common in these terraces, with the honest caveat that a wall of mirror shows every mark and gets cleaned more than people expect. Framed doors suit the period houses better than a flat slab against original skirting.
Nearly every terrace here has one, and it is usually made unusable by a standard 600mm wardrobe.
A 450mm run takes folded clothes, shelving and short hang, and leaves enough floor to use the room. Where it doubles as a study or a nursery, the same carcass can carry a desk return or a changing surface.
Most bedrooms in this stock have a breast with two unequal alcoves. Building into both and running the fronts flush across the breast produces a full wall of storage from the most awkward wall in the room.
Freestanding furniture simply cannot use that shape.
Deep original skirtings are worth keeping. We scribe over them rather than cutting them out, so the run sits as though it was built with the house.
Walk In Wardrobes Ilkeston
Fitted Bedrooms & Wardrobes Ilkeston
You can also explore our supplier website, and if something takes your fancy, let us know and we can order it on your behalf.
Twelve minutes down the A6096
Derby Road, Stapleford, NG9 7AD. Parking on site.
Come and open the doors. Drawer runners, rail mountings and whether the shelves flex are what decide how wardrobes feel in five years, and none of it shows in a photograph.
Call 0115 877 7595.
