People often wonder what to do with living room alcoves or how to best use the alcoves in a bedroom.

Are you looking for clever ideas for your alcoves?

If you have a house in England of a certain age the chances are you have alcoves. A recess either side of a chimney for example, or your bedroom alcoves next to a fireplace. These offer loads of storage opportunities and potential for beautiful design and fitted alcove cabinets and alcove wardrobes are probably our most popular request in Bristol.

Everyone loves a list, don’t they? read on for 8 clever alcove ideas for your home.

So, I have put together a selection of our favourite alcove projects for bedrooms and living rooms and other nooks and recesses in your home, all designed and made by us for you to have a look through.

1) Fitted Wardrobe

Freestanding wardrobes are often bulky things that take up a lots of space. It makes sense that if you have an alcove going spare to put it to good use and fitted bespoke wardrobes are where it is at!

simple white wardrobe shaker style fitted custom hand made bristol — Plywood Wardrobe

Here is a plywood wardrobe which we get a lot of happy comments about, it was such a simple design, and we think it looks great click here to see the full project. Or sometimes its best to go simple – this one all the way to the ceiling to maximise on storage space with simple handless doors. And for another, more contemporary design, this white and oak wardrobe has clean lines and cut out handles with exposed oak click here for more on this one..

Fitted wardrobes can have a mixture of hanging rails and movable shelves and can have drawers for extra storage. We like to make our cabinet interiors from Birch plywood or a veneered plywood such as Oak, we find this to be the best material for the job and looks great too. I am writing another blog about why I love plywood – watch this space.

2) Double Alcove Wardrobes

What is better than one wardrobe? Yep – two! His and hers! We love a pair of wardrobes and can design the interior to be exactly right for you and your other half. You can fold your clothes and hang them neatly and they can shove theirs in any old way they like.

handmade shaker style dark railings bespoke fitted wardrobes with drawers bristol — Shaker Style Dark Wardrobes

double alcove wardrobes fitted custom made bristol white shaker style — Shaker Style Dark Wardrobes

3) Bookshelves or Nookshelves

You might have a little Nook somewhere in your home from building works or just because that’s how your home is… how about filling that nook with shelves making it too a useful and beautiful space. Bookshelves just seem to make sense in a nook or an alcove.

nook book shelves full of books oak shelves bristol bepoke — Little Nook with Oak Floating Shelves

fitted floating white book shelves alcove storage ideas — Little Nook with Oak Floating Shelves

4) Traditional Alcove Cabinets Bristol

If you know you need lots of storage, to display and to hide (let’s be honest who wants to see your rickety monopoly and squished cluedo boxes) in your living room then your best bet is to go for a bespoke fitted unit.

Here is a traditional option, often great for period homes, and is a fully painted bookcase and cupboard below. Shown here in soft grey or in bright white, these are beautiful, understated and so useful – see more about these projects by clicking here.

best Grey handmade traditional alcove cupboard shelves shaker style bristol — Soft Grey Traditional Alcove Cabinets

walnut top alcove cupboard and shelves bespoke bristol — Soft Grey Traditional Alcove Cabinets

5 Solid Wooden Alcove Cabinets

Solid wood is a great choice for warmth in your living room cupboards. Here shows a clever solution to log storage too – a bifold door to easily access wood for the wood burning stove with floating chunky oak shelves above. We always provide cable management holes and can cut out around existing plug sockets and tv ariels etc.

clever alcove units with oak cupboards and floating shelves best made in bristol bespoke furniture — Oak Alcove Cabinets

alcove cupboard log store bifold door oak made in bristol bespoke — Oak Alcove Cabinets

solid oak alcove cupboards and shelves — Traditional Oak Alcove Units

6 Simple shelves

A classic and simple option is to shelf out the whole alcove from top to bottom. Here are a few examples for you – floating shelves look great in an alcove. Create a library in your alcove or use them for your tv and plants.

solid oak alcove shelves bristol tv — Oak Floating Alcove Shelves

wooden alcove shleves bristol fitted furniture — Oak Floating Alcove Shelves

7 Funky map shelves

You could go crazy and have something really funky and contemporary like these modern map storage shelves – these are colour matched to the OS map series and were a joy to make. We used oak veneered plywood and painted back panels.

funky modern contemporary colourful alcove shelves os maps pink orange yellow plywood

8 Alcove Desk

And finally, here is a great idea – a desk and bookshelves in a little alcove. These clients asked us to make use of an old singer sewing machine base they owned, and we turned it into a desk with drawers and we think it looks really cute in this little nook.

Jim Sharples Furniture Lower Redland road vanity desk2

We hope that has given you some ideas for your home, we love helping our clients design storage for their homes so do get in touch if you have an alcove that is in need of our attention! We are ready to talk about your alcove cabinets Bristol!

Lets design your dream alcoves

8 Clever Alcove Ideas You Will Love for Your Home