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A fitted wardrobe with the doors open, showing hanging rails, adjustable shelves and a bank of drawers

Harrow, Middlesex

Fitted wardrobes in Harrow

Harrow is the closest town on our list with real demand behind it, and the housing is the reason. Metroland built most of it between the wars, and a 1930s semi has a very particular wardrobe problem.

Area
Harrow, Middlesex
Postcodes
HA1, HA2, HA3, HA5
From us
About 7 miles from our Hayes base, twenty-five minutes on a normal morning.
Book a free design visit More on fitted wardrobes

About Harrow

Why the joinery here is not the joinery two towns over.

Plan of a 1930s bay-fronted bedroom in Harrow Looking down on a typical Metroland front bedroom. A bay window takes the outside wall. Opposite it a chimney breast projects into the room, leaving a shallow alcove either side, each about 700mm deep and rarely the same width. The door opens into the corner. The wardrobes go in the two alcoves with a bridging cupboard over the door, because that is the only usable wall the room has. Bay window Chimney breast Alcove wardrobe Alcove wardrobe Bridging over the door Radiator
Plan, looking down The bay takes the wall you would want. What is left is two alcoves either side of the chimney breast, usually about 700mm deep and rarely matching, plus the wall over the door.

Harrow is Metroland. The Metropolitan Line pushed out through Harrow-on-the-Hill in the 1920s and 30s and most of HA1, HA2 and HA3 was built in that window, which means bay-fronted semi-detached houses in long, near-identical runs.

That bay is the whole problem for a bedroom. It swallows the wall that ought to hold the wardrobes and leaves you a chimney breast with two shallow alcoves on the opposite side, usually about 700mm deep and rarely the same width as each other. The standard answer round here is a pair of alcove units with a bridging section over the door, which uses the only wall a Metroland front bedroom really has.

Closer to Wealdstone and along the Harrow & Wealdstone corridor the stock turns Victorian and terraced, with deeper skirting, taller ceilings and narrower alcoves. Harrow also has a lot of larger family households, and we get asked for more hanging and drawer space per room here than almost anywhere else we work.

The other Metroland habit is the rear extension, which turns the back bedroom into a long narrow room with the window at one end and the door at the other. Wardrobes down the long wall are the obvious answer, but only once the door swing and the radiator are settled, and in a lot of these houses the radiator sits exactly where the run wants to go.

  • Where the bay leaves usable wall, and whether the alcoves either side of the chimney breast match
  • Radiator position on the long wall of an extended back bedroom
  • Door swing, before anything is drawn
  • Skirting depth, which changes between the Metroland semis and the Wealdstone terraces

Also covering Wealdstone · North Harrow · South Harrow · Rayners Lane · Kenton · Pinner · Stanmore

Insurance

Fully covered by public liability insurance.

The Metroland bedroom, and what to do with it

A 1930s Harrow semi gives you a front bedroom with a bay, a chimney breast opposite, and a door in the corner. Three of the four walls are effectively unusable for a wardrobe.

So the alcoves do the work. Two units either side of the breast, taken to the ceiling, with a bridging cupboard across the top so the whole thing reads as one piece rather than two cupboards. If the door position allows it, a further bridge over the doorway adds a surprising amount.

The back bedroom is usually the easier job

Rear bedrooms in these houses tend to have one clear wall and a squarer plan. That is where a full run of sliding or hinged doors works best, and it is often the cheaper of the two rooms to do well.

Sliding doors in the smaller rooms

The back bedroom and the box room over the stairs are where the bed ends up close to the wardrobe wall, and a hinged door needs clear floor in front of it that those rooms rarely have. That is where sliding wardrobe doors earn their place: no swing, one uninterrupted front, and a mirrored or glass panel or two to make a small Pinner or Rayners Lane bedroom feel larger than it is.

The living room chimney breast

Downstairs, the same chimney breast that shapes the bedroom above it is a ready-made base for a media wall. The breast gives the depth for a flush television for free, and the alcoves either side take the shelving.

Prices are the same in Harrow as everywhere else we work. For the ranges, taken from jobs actually done, see what fitted wardrobes cost.

Common questions

Asked often enough to answer here.

Do you cover all of Harrow?

HA1, HA2, HA3 and HA5, which takes in Harrow-on-the-Hill, Wealdstone, North and South Harrow, Rayners Lane, Kenton and Pinner. It is about seven miles from our base in Hayes, so it is one of the easiest runs we do.

Our front bedroom has a bay window. Where do the wardrobes go?

Almost always the chimney breast wall, as a pair of alcove units with a bridging cupboard over the door or the breast. It is the standard answer for a Metroland semi because the bay wall cannot take depth and the window wall cannot either. We can also build a shallow run under the bay itself for folded storage.

The two alcoves either side of our chimney breast are different widths. Is that a problem?

It is completely normal in Harrow and it is not a problem, it is just measuring. Each alcove is measured separately at several heights. Where the two are visibly different we can make the door widths match visually even where the openings do not.

Do you do kitchens in Harrow as well?

Yes. Fitted kitchens, kitchen fitting on a kitchen you have already bought, and renovations. Same visit, same man doing the work.

How much do fitted wardrobes cost in Harrow?

The same as anywhere we work: most jobs land between £2,000 and £5,000, and there is a full breakdown on the fitted wardrobes cost page. We do not charge a London premium and there is no VAT to add.

Can you work around the Metropolitan Line parking restrictions?

Yes. Tell us the permit situation when you book and we will sort visitor permits or plan around the restricted hours. It is worth mentioning early rather than on the first morning.

What we build in Harrow

Everything below is fitted in Harrow homes, by the same man who measures it.

The next step

Arshdeep can be in Harrow to measure this week. None of it costs you anything.

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