Islington · London
Under-Stairs Storage in Islington
From one end of Islington to the other, we design and make under-stairs storage for your room. Every job starts with a design visit, then a written quote.
Under-Stairs Storage across Islington
Where we work in Islington
The furniture is made in our workshop, then fitted. The lists below link to a page for each place.
Larger neighbourhoods
How we make under-stairs storage for Islington
Not every staircase is in a house. Maisonettes, split-level flats and homes with stairs down to a lower floor often have usable space beneath the steps. The parts we make in our workshop are sized to get through the doors and hallways on the way in. The same careful process applies to any home in Islington. We make under-stairs cupboards from MDF made to resist moisture and birch plywood, then spray-painted or hand-painted, and people most often get in touch about a fuse board that’s hard to get to and open space under the stairs that collects clutter.
Period rooms often have skirting boards, picture rails, cornices or coving for the furniture to meet. On fitting day, we cut and scribe the furniture around these details. The time the fitting takes depends on how much storage you want under the stairs, and the fitting days are agreed in your quote.
- You get in touch with some details and, if you like, a sketch.
- At the design visit, we look at the stairs, the hall and what you need to store, and check where the meters and fuse board sit.
- Your quote sets out the design, the materials and the finish. Take your time to look through it.
- We make the drawers, doors and carcasses in our workshop. The materials are moisture-resistant MDF and birch plywood.
- The storage is fitted and set level, ready for the first coats and shoes.
How our quotes work
There is no price list, because each job is designed for a single room. We measure up, discuss the design and send a written quote. To start, tell us about the room on our contact form.
What you get with us
- Spray painted or hand painted, in the colour you choose
- Saturday visits and fitting by prior arrangement
- A design visit, then a quote in writing
- Work across the whole of London
Getting a quote
Pictures help us understand the room before we visit. Pictures of the whole wall, the corners and the ceiling line give us a good feel for the space, particularly with rough measurements. To share them, tell us about the room on our contact form, and we’ll suggest a time for a design visit.
Landmarks near Highbury
Our area takes in the homes around Musical Theatre Academy, The Snooty Fox pub and Highbury Quadrant Primary School. Nearby too are Highbury Fields (close by, under half a mile south-west), Christ Church (less than half a mile north-west) and City of London Academy Highbury Grove (close by, under half a mile south). There’s a railway station in Highbury itself: Canonbury station. Nearby you will also find Arsenal Football Club Museum (0.6 miles north-west) and Hackney Walk (2 miles east). Open spaces near Highbury include Gillespie Park.
Under-stairs storage for homes across Islington
Islington has homes of every age, Highbury, Farringdon and Clerkenwell included, and each brings its own spaces to work with. Under-stairs cupboards are scribed and levelled on site.
Homes built before 1919 make up about 44% of the housing in Islington, with about 19% built since 2000, based on the Valuation Office Agency’s 2025 council tax data. Knowing roughly when a home was built helps, because walls and fixings change from one era to the next. About 44% of homes in Islington were built before 1919, on the Valuation Office Agency’s council tax figures for 2025. In terraced houses of that age, the space under the stairs often holds the gas meter, electricity meter or fuse board, and they must stay reachable. About 24% of households in Islington live in flats in converted or shared houses, based on Census 2021. Conversions often leave rooms in unusual shapes, with partition walls, boxed-in pipes and chimney breasts in odd places, and the route in may go through a shared hall and stairs. If your flat is leasehold, check your lease before anything is fixed to the walls.
We work across all 32 London boroughs and the City of London, and Islington is part of that. Wherever you are, the job starts with a design visit.
Highbury: Near listed buildings like Union Chapel, about 0.6 miles south-west of the centre of Highbury, older homes may keep original joinery that under-stairs cupboards can be designed around. For a listed home, fixing into original features may need listed building consent. For families living near Highbury Quadrant Primary School, deep drawers suit the bulky things families collect, from scooters to swimming kit.
Flats, leases and landlords
In conversions and newer blocks, many internal walls are timber or metal stud with plasterboard. Fixings are chosen to suit whatever the wall is made of, which we check at the measuring visit.
We also make and fit furniture for landlords furnishing a let. The materials are the same as for any home: moisture-resistant MDF and birch plywood.
DIY, flat-pack or bespoke
If you’re handy, a simple shelf or a standard wardrobe in a square room is a reasonable DIY job. Sloping ceilings, uneven floors and lath-and-plaster walls make it harder, where scribing and fixings that suit the wall are important.
Off-the-shelf cupboards come in fixed sizes, so there is typically a gap left over at the top or at one end. Furniture we make is built to the room’s own sizes, so it can use the full height and width.
The problems under-stairs storage solve
When a home is short on storage, the space under the stairs is too useful to waste. Turned into proper storage, it can hold the everyday things that would otherwise fill the hallway. It also takes pressure off the other cupboards in the house.
If any of these sound familiar, it’s worth getting in touch:
- Coats and shoes piling up in the hall
- No room for a small desk or a place to work
- A dark, wasted space under the stairs
- The low end of the space going to waste
What affects the cost of under-stairs storage
There’s no set price, because there is no set room. What affects it comes down to:
- How square the room is
- The internal fittings
- How big the furniture is
- Spray painting or hand painting
What goes inside matters as much as the outside: drawers take more making than shelves, and each rail, divider or pull-out adds to the work. At the design visit, we work out what you need inside, then set it out in the quote.
What we need to know
Here’s what helps us most when you contact us:
- Rough measurements: width, height and depth
- Photos of the whole wall or room, including the floor and ceiling
- Your postcode and the borough
- Anything fixed to the wall that the furniture needs to work around
Every quote follows a design visit. At the visit, we measure, look at the walls and floors and go through the design with you, and the written quote comes after. Your quote is written for your room once we’ve visited and measured. To arrange a visit, send us a few details through our contact form.
What it’s made from
Doors and drawer fronts
Any access door for a meter can be made to look like the other fronts. It opens wide so readings and checks are easy. The rest of the fronts can be doors, drawers or both.
Spray-painted finish
Spray painting gives the fronts a very even surface. It’s applied in our workshop, and the paint needs time to cure fully once it is fitted.
FAQs: under-stairs storage in Islington
Does fitted furniture need planning permission?
Not typically. Conservation areas mostly control changes to the outside, and furniture inside a house doesn’t normally need it. In a listed building, check with the council’s conservation officer before any work.
Can you fit furniture on an external wall?
It needs a little planning: leaving ventilation behind and inside helps stop condensation. Damp treatment is not something we do, so any damp needs sorting first.
My walls aren’t straight. Is that a problem?
It is something we deal with all the time. The furniture is scribed to follow the walls and levelled on feet or a plinth.
Do photos help?
Yes. They give us a feel for the space before we visit, along with rough measurements. It helps to show radiators, sockets and anything else on the wall.
Can the under-stairs storage be painted to match the hall?
Yes. We paint the storage in the colour you choose, by spray or by hand. It can match the walls, the stairs or the woodwork, so it sits quietly in the hall.
What does an under-stairs cupboard cost?
Prices are quoted for your room, once we’ve measured and talked through the design. The mix of drawers, doors and shelves, and the finish you choose, all play a part. Everything is set out in a quote in writing after the visit.
Do you do the electrics?
No. Electrical work isn’t something we do; it’s a job for your electrician. We can allow for cable routes in the design.