Rough costs of a fitted wardrobe

greensalad

ka7e said:

I have 3.5m of Pax similar to ashe's and it took a day for my son and I to construct and fit..The second person is mainly needed to up-end the carcasses and steady them for bolting to each other.  Another few hours for me to fit out the internal rails, drawers and shelves. The instructions are pretty self-explanatory and an electric screwdriver is a must!

Annoyingly gap was 3.97m so 4 x 1m units wouldn't fit, but the 40cm Billy bookcase was the same height as the 201cm units.

Disagree on the electric screwdriver. IIRC the joints are cam locks so they only need to screw in a few threads. Didn’t all mine with a standard screwdriver and a hammer for the back pins and each carcass take about 15 minutes to construct. 

ashe

greensalad said:

ka7e said:

I have 3.5m of Pax similar to ashe's and it took a day for my son and I to construct and fit..The second person is mainly needed to up-end the carcasses and steady them for bolting to each other.  Another few hours for me to fit out the internal rails, drawers and shelves. The instructions are pretty self-explanatory and an electric screwdriver is a must!

Annoyingly gap was 3.97m so 4 x 1m units wouldn't fit, but the 40cm Billy bookcase was the same height as the 201cm units.

Disagree on the electric screwdriver. IIRC the joints are cam locks so they only need to screw in a few threads. Didn’t all mine with a standard screwdriver and a hammer for the back pins and each carcass take about 15 minutes to construct. 

we did the first one with a manual screwdriver and the last 3 with my dewalt and it was a god send.

I think you're misremembering as there are a lot of parts to be screwed in on pax - a total
of 32 and only 12 are cam locks. Even the campo is ad made quicker with it but the rest of the bolts are sped up too. 

Emmia

We've got pax wardrobes here, left by the previous owners, which are probably at least a decade old. We've shunted around the internals, stuffed them with clothes, shoes etc and they're absolutely fantastic - because of the arrangement of the room, I probably wouldn't try to remove them (unless I was disposing of them) but I'd have them again, no question. 

I've personally always found Ikea stuff of this sort a doddle to assemble (but agree on the electric screwdriver) and our DIY skills are pretty limited.

In terms of MADE,  the dining table and chairs we have are great, but the sideboard had black coated metal pull handles where the coating bubbled and peeled off (I eventually took a brillo pad to them as the peely stage looked horrible - so they're currently a dark silver base metal colour). Unfortunately they don't seem to be a standard width, so it's proving tricky to replace them with off the shelf options. Would I buy from MADE again after this?  possibly not

Hannimal

ashe said:

We have 4 double pax wardrobes with load of rails, drawers, slide our compartments etc

we had them installed in an evening, def a 2 person job. But once you've done one it's easy. We've since taken them down and put them back up to decorate around them. 

Ours aren't fitted as they fit neatly into the space so we decided against the extra expense but I'd def just do the main installation myself and get carpenter in to do the "fitted" work 

Advantage of ikea is readily available spares for nearly every part 

This is absolutely gorgeous. I will be booking an IKEA appointment!

Hannimal

benson1980 said:

greensalad said:

Hannimal said:

greensalad said:

Hannimal said:

benson1980 said:

Hannimal said:

Thanks so much everyone. Would it be stupid to ask a carpenter to come make an ikea unit look fitted in? It sounds like this could be the cheapest option but I would not be able to do this myself because I am busy and have no life skills

You can do I’m sure but as said if you want wardrobes similar to pax and fitted for you I would advise having a look at fittingly. On reflection the fitting charges were very reasonable as it took me at least two full days to do it all. We have an L shape of built in units in a room around 13 x 11ft and diy was 1400. Fully fitted charge was an extra £450 I believe.

I suspect the pax plus trying to find a tradesperson to create a bespoke look, would work out as more expensive. Plus you then have the hassle of design and trying to find someone to do it.

Based on the IKEA website I think I could get a PAX for £900 and they estimate fitting cost through task rabbit to be £260. Can fittingly really do cheaper than that? The PAX unit has all the fancy shelving inside as well. 

You're not paying for the fitting cost with Task Rabbit. You're paying for them to construct the flat pack. Not framing around it for that price.

Why not do it yourself? Really wasn't that hard. Took me a week or two just evenings and I have minimal tools and DIY knowledge.

Sure, but it's kind of indicative of the cost. I might not be able to afford the framing.

I'm not doing it myself because
- my time is worth more than £300 for a week and two evenings
- I have no DIY skills and would probably end up making a mess of it
- IKEA says this is a two-person job

I said a week or two of evenings. Like probably 8 evenings, and when I say "evening" I mean 30 minutes - 1hr of work because I had to wait for things to dry. I have limited DIY skills but it wasn't hard. It's only a 2-person job to construct a PAX wardrobe if you need to construct them upright. If you have enough clearance to construct them on the floor it's very easy. (The carcasses are only 4 panels and a plinth).

The PAX themselves for my installation cost about £900 (with some luxury bits like glass shelves) and the framing materials were £100 delivered. My framing was extra difficult too because we had to have offset depths. Fair enough if you don't want to do it but if you want the look of built-in and aren't willing to spend big bucks on it then DIY is the only option, at least that's what it came down to for me! Don't have the £5k to spend on fitted so gotta figure it out myself

Seems like for built-ins there's only three options.

1. Buy from Sharps/Hammonds etc and spend £5k+
2. Buy PAX and get them framed by a carpenter £2k+
3. DIY £1k

Agreed. Don’t want to spend the big bucks, wants fitted bespoke look but not willing to do any DIY. 

Doesn’t compute.

Not sure what warrants the snarky comments. As I said in my opening post, I am here to try to figure out the costs of different options. I think £260 for someone to assemble a wardrobe is very reasonable. The big bucks fitted ones are, turns out, in excess of £5000. That's more than I paid for a whole new bathroom, all-in. It's not what I was excepting.

benson1980

Hannimal said:

benson1980 said:

greensalad said:

Hannimal said:

greensalad said:

Hannimal said:

benson1980 said:

Hannimal said:

Thanks so much everyone. Would it be stupid to ask a carpenter to come make an ikea unit look fitted in? It sounds like this could be the cheapest option but I would not be able to do this myself because I am busy and have no life skills

You can do I’m sure but as said if you want wardrobes similar to pax and fitted for you I would advise having a look at fittingly. On reflection the fitting charges were very reasonable as it took me at least two full days to do it all. We have an L shape of built in units in a room around 13 x 11ft and diy was 1400. Fully fitted charge was an extra £450 I believe.

I suspect the pax plus trying to find a tradesperson to create a bespoke look, would work out as more expensive. Plus you then have the hassle of design and trying to find someone to do it.

Based on the IKEA website I think I could get a PAX for £900 and they estimate fitting cost through task rabbit to be £260. Can fittingly really do cheaper than that? The PAX unit has all the fancy shelving inside as well. 

You're not paying for the fitting cost with Task Rabbit. You're paying for them to construct the flat pack. Not framing around it for that price.

Why not do it yourself? Really wasn't that hard. Took me a week or two just evenings and I have minimal tools and DIY knowledge.

Sure, but it's kind of indicative of the cost. I might not be able to afford the framing.

I'm not doing it myself because
- my time is worth more than £300 for a week and two evenings
- I have no DIY skills and would probably end up making a mess of it
- IKEA says this is a two-person job

I said a week or two of evenings. Like probably 8 evenings, and when I say "evening" I mean 30 minutes - 1hr of work because I had to wait for things to dry. I have limited DIY skills but it wasn't hard. It's only a 2-person job to construct a PAX wardrobe if you need to construct them upright. If you have enough clearance to construct them on the floor it's very easy. (The carcasses are only 4 panels and a plinth).

The PAX themselves for my installation cost about £900 (with some luxury bits like glass shelves) and the framing materials were £100 delivered. My framing was extra difficult too because we had to have offset depths. Fair enough if you don't want to do it but if you want the look of built-in and aren't willing to spend big bucks on it then DIY is the only option, at least that's what it came down to for me! Don't have the £5k to spend on fitted so gotta figure it out myself

Seems like for built-ins there's only three options.

1. Buy from Sharps/Hammonds etc and spend £5k+
2. Buy PAX and get them framed by a carpenter £2k+
3. DIY £1k

Agreed. Don’t want to spend the big bucks, wants fitted bespoke look but not willing to do any DIY. 

Doesn’t compute.

Not sure what warrants the snarky comments. As I said in my opening post, I am here to try to figure out the costs of different options. I think £260 for someone to assemble a wardrobe is very reasonable. The big bucks fitted ones are, turns out, in excess of £5000. That's more than I paid for a whole new bathroom, all-in. It's not what I was excepting.

It is probably quite reasonable for putting them together but if you are looking for a carpenter to some bespoke work to make them appear fitted it is going to obviously add a fair bit to the cost.

Apologies- didn't mean to offend. Just seemed like you wanted everything done for you, but on a budget price. There are cheaper options for fitted wardrobes as I've pointed out. Whether overall it is going to be cheaper to buy PAX, plus extra carcass you need, plus assembly, plus carpentry, I don't know.

Hannimal

benson1980 said:

Hannimal said:

benson1980 said:

greensalad said:

Hannimal said:

greensalad said:

Hannimal said:

benson1980 said:

Hannimal said:

Thanks so much everyone. Would it be stupid to ask a carpenter to come make an ikea unit look fitted in? It sounds like this could be the cheapest option but I would not be able to do this myself because I am busy and have no life skills

You can do I’m sure but as said if you want wardrobes similar to pax and fitted for you I would advise having a look at fittingly. On reflection the fitting charges were very reasonable as it took me at least two full days to do it all. We have an L shape of built in units in a room around 13 x 11ft and diy was 1400. Fully fitted charge was an extra £450 I believe.

I suspect the pax plus trying to find a tradesperson to create a bespoke look, would work out as more expensive. Plus you then have the hassle of design and trying to find someone to do it.

Based on the IKEA website I think I could get a PAX for £900 and they estimate fitting cost through task rabbit to be £260. Can fittingly really do cheaper than that? The PAX unit has all the fancy shelving inside as well. 

You're not paying for the fitting cost with Task Rabbit. You're paying for them to construct the flat pack. Not framing around it for that price.

Why not do it yourself? Really wasn't that hard. Took me a week or two just evenings and I have minimal tools and DIY knowledge.

Sure, but it's kind of indicative of the cost. I might not be able to afford the framing.

I'm not doing it myself because
- my time is worth more than £300 for a week and two evenings
- I have no DIY skills and would probably end up making a mess of it
- IKEA says this is a two-person job

I said a week or two of evenings. Like probably 8 evenings, and when I say "evening" I mean 30 minutes - 1hr of work because I had to wait for things to dry. I have limited DIY skills but it wasn't hard. It's only a 2-person job to construct a PAX wardrobe if you need to construct them upright. If you have enough clearance to construct them on the floor it's very easy. (The carcasses are only 4 panels and a plinth).

The PAX themselves for my installation cost about £900 (with some luxury bits like glass shelves) and the framing materials were £100 delivered. My framing was extra difficult too because we had to have offset depths. Fair enough if you don't want to do it but if you want the look of built-in and aren't willing to spend big bucks on it then DIY is the only option, at least that's what it came down to for me! Don't have the £5k to spend on fitted so gotta figure it out myself

Seems like for built-ins there's only three options.

1. Buy from Sharps/Hammonds etc and spend £5k+
2. Buy PAX and get them framed by a carpenter £2k+
3. DIY £1k

Agreed. Don’t want to spend the big bucks, wants fitted bespoke look but not willing to do any DIY. 

Doesn’t compute.

Not sure what warrants the snarky comments. As I said in my opening post, I am here to try to figure out the costs of different options. I think £260 for someone to assemble a wardrobe is very reasonable. The big bucks fitted ones are, turns out, in excess of £5000. That's more than I paid for a whole new bathroom, all-in. It's not what I was excepting.

It is probably quite reasonable for putting them together but if you are looking for a carpenter to some bespoke work to make them appear fitted it is going to obviously add a fair bit to the cost.

Apologies- didn't mean to offend. Just seemed like you wanted everything done for you, but on a budget price. There are cheaper options for fitted wardrobes as I've pointed out. Whether overall it is going to be cheaper to buy PAX, plus extra carcass you need, plus assembly, plus carpentry, I don't know.

It looks like the prices of these cheaper options have gone up quite considerably. Even the MADE.com wardrobe has increased in a few months from £950 to £1600. Quite whopping increases. IKEA PAX meanwhile has remained same price. 

I don't think I will get a carpenter to do the extra work