Built-in furniture

 Almost a year ago, I shared some of my storage ideas that I have evolved over the years living in a 1930s apartment with very limited built-in storage. There is a very small built-in wardrobe that is woefully inadequate, even for my minimalist collection of clothing, prompting me to have an open hanging rail where I keep some of my more displayable items.

My tiny wardrobe with the hanging rail for the extras

This is not ideal - even with a carefully curated collection of garments, the open rail can often look untidy, especially when the cats have been playing amongst the shoes. The even bigger problem is that everything gets dusty, and I really cannot live with the aesthetic of plastic covers. I have also been hesitant in installing built-in cupboards, as I am very conscious of destroying the beautiful 1930s detailing and the wonderful proportions of the room.

Dwellings of more recent design, whether flats or houses, will usually have built-in cupboards in the bedrooms, and are much more space-efficient than traditional bulky wardrobes. But what if you move into a home that does not have them? What are the things we need to think about when planning new built-in storage?

Even if they are put in after the house is completed, the new built-in cupboards will be pretty permanent, as floor finishes (especially wall-to-wall carpets) will tend to be cut away under the cupboard and if you have cornices at the junction of wall and ceiling, these will also be cut away. Only if the position of the cupboard is a complete disaster, or the room radically changes function, is a change to the built-in fittings warranted.

This leads me to the central concern of today's blog - how do we plan the new cupboards to optimise the space? When doing this kind of space planning, it is always good to measure the room and draw it out on squared paper, including the positions of windows, plug points, light switches and light fittings. It is expensive and sometimes messy to move electrical points, so best to avoid this if possible. 

Then take another sheet of your squared paper and draw the pieces of loose furniture that you are planning for the room. Look at the sizes of ready-made shells for built-in cupboards and draw out quite a few of these to play around with. Custom-made cupboards can be absolutely any size, but the standard sizes have the wealth of many decades of design behind them, so great to use as a starting point. Cut all of these out and play around with them to get the best layout.

Bedroom layout with furniture and fittings

This layout is very ingenious, as it uses the built-in wardrobe to block the direct sight into the room from the door, and uses the same wall that is already taken up with the door swing. The choice of a mirror for one of the wardrobe doors is also a great way of making the space seem larger, and the use of sliding doors for this cupboard also allows for the bed to be much closer as you don't have to manoeuvre around hinged doors. 

Clever positioning of the wardrobe to optimise the space

The desk under the window is very effective for this particular combination of furniture, but if you need two single beds in the room, these would probably fit most comfortably on either side of the window, with a freestanding desk or two on the side walls at the foot of each bed.

The desk in front of the window works well with a double bed in the middle of the room

This brings me to another factor when designing retrofitted built-in furniture. Think about future needs for the room - if it is a room for a baby, you can easily rearrange the small pieces of furniture in any number of ways. As the child gets older, you may need to fit a single bed and a desk, or even two beds. But when the children have grown up and left home, you may want to turn this into a guest room, or a study with a couch that converts to a double bed. Does the layout of the fittings allow for each of these changes, or will you need an expensive refurbishment each time?