Bespoke Alcove Cabinets
If you find that space is at a premium in your home, bespoke alcove furniture offers a beautiful solution. Fitted alcove furniture can totally change the way you use your living space, helping to maximise the potential of every room.
Our alcove cabinets are made to measure and come in a variety of styles and formats - as stand alone units or combined with bookcases or floating shelves fitted above. Whether you have an awkward internal architecture, or need to incorporate specific storage, we tailor each piece of alcove furniture to seamlessly fit your home.
From the carefully sourced wood we use, to the superior range of handles and knobs we fit, our bespoke alcove furniture can be designed to fit, or enhance, any aesthetic.
Shaker style cabinets
Our cabinets were perfectly finished off with handle hardware from Furnipart.
“Milkwood designed, built and installed some beautiful floating shelves and alcove cabinets for us. Both were built off-site and installed in under a day each. They’re beautifully made and we’re absolutely thrilled with the result. Would 100% recommend and use again.”
Art Deco-inspired alcove display cabinets
We designed and made these beautiful alcove display cabinets for a large 1930’s house in Kent, undergoing restoration work during the summer of 2019. Our brief was to create a design style to harmonise with the house’s period fittings and to include glazed cabinet doors to display the client’s collection of minerals and history books.
Materials, method & finish
We produced the cabinets from a mix of tulip wood, oak and birch plywood. Tulip wood was used for the traditional, hand-crafted rail and panel door frames and these, the custom-made Art Deco styled pelmets and skirtings and the outer, cabinet framing were hand painted to co-ordinate with the room décor.
Birch plywood with a natural, plant-based white oil finish. Shelf trims in ebonised solid oak.
Birch plywood was used internally. In order to soften the natural honey colour of the plywood and to create a strong monotone contrast with the blackened oak, we applied a natural, plant-based white oil to finish.
To reflect the rich, Japanese black mantlepiece, the solid oak tops, shelf trims and oak veneer door panels were blackened using the magical process of ebonising – a chemical reaction caused with the addition of a ferrous solution which reacts with the natural tannins within the oak to naturally darken the wood - we’ve used this process before in a more contemporary design - check out the button below.
Hardware
Florentine bronze knuckle hinges – used on the glazed doors, traditional shelf support system and antique knobs with striated colour bands, visually tying in with the fireplace hearth and surround, completed the look. For optimum usability, the lower doors were fitted with concealed, soft-close internal cabinet hinges made by Austrian manufacturer, Blum – we even managed to source these fantastic, high-quality, modern hinges in a limited edition, onyx black finish to match in with the other antique-style fittings and the colour palette we employed for the project.
Process
We source quality materials from sustainable sources to build beautiful fitted furniture. To make our alcove cabinets, as with all our other fitted cabinets, panels are first cut to size on our big saw, then planed and the edges machine sanded and rounded very slightly to remove the sharp edges. Cabinets are then jointed using wooden ‘biscuits’ and fixed together. Our Shaker and Victorian style panel doors are handmade in the traditional way, but we also utilise modern processes and materials in their construction.
Solid wood & real wood veneered tops like this one in natural Oak add warmth & interest.
Design
Specific customer requirements for alcove cabinets are, as with all of our bespoke furniture, accommodated within the design with ease.
Awkward internal architecture.
Matching existing materials, flooring or wall colour.
Incorporating specific storage needs or existing audio-visual equipment.
Providing discreet power and connectivity to equipment housed within or on the furniture.
Detail
Our craftsmen can input solid wood cable sleeves & covers, sprayed to match the top, to keep wires organised and workspaces clean.
Projected tops are gently rounded to soften visually, as well as being more child, and home, friendly.
Function
All our handmade alcove cabinets perfectly marry aesthetic appeal with functionality. Fitted flush for clean lines, our alcove cabinet doors are fitted with discreet touch latches manufactured for us, in Germany. Equipped with soft buffers, all our doors operate smoothly and quietly. All you need to do is tap.
Fit
Electrical sockets can be re-sited inside your cabinets; and all our cabinets are neatly fitted to the walls using carefully shaped infills, precisely cut to fit the architecture.
Read more about our unrivalled fitting service on our How It Works page.
Consultation
Our fitted alcove cabinets aren’t just storage, but gorgeous design pieces handcrafted for your home.
Call us on 01233 732504, or email us at info@milkwood-furniture.com to ask us what we can build for your home.