Cost of Built in shelving for an alcove

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Dublin6

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Would anyone have an idea of the expected cost for built in shelving for an alcove in a living room? The alcove shelving would be mdf painted, 1.7 m wide and 2.3 m tall, chunky/thick shelf planks, doors at bottom row to hide ntl boxes etc.

Its not easy getting three quotes - got one quote for 2400 - seems quite a lot, cant get other people to call me back. Would anyone have any tradesmen recommendations?

Thanks
 
Hi there,
I got similar quotes 2 years ago. I didnt want anything overly fancy. Just shelving in alcoves with a cupboard built in at the end. Ridiculous prices!
We ended up selling our house and not getting it done, but my advice would be to look for local carpenters, retired or maybe very small outfit and see can you get a better price. We got a retired carpenter (and very nice man too!) to install our built in wardrobes. Charged 120 a day and bought the materials for us so that we could get them cheaper.
Local ads etc might be worth a look!
 
Dublin6, thats sounds like an outrageous quote. I had this exact job done about 14 years ago - quite cheaply at the time. It was OK, but one of the doors has come adrift now and some of the shelves have warped with the weight of the books over the years. I am now going to get an Edwardian antique bookcase which I saw recently, it's very big, very beautiful, very sturdy and has passed the test of time. It is also going to cost less than what your carpenter has quoted.
 
I got a retired carpenter to do it last year - I think it was €500 for two alcoves - I supplied the wood, which I think was about €200.
 
would you think of going up to IKEA in Belfast? They have some amazing solutions for making up your own space solutions for areas like this. I was up there yesterday and they show you some great ideas in the showrooms before you commit to buying anything.
i've bought stuff before in England and it did what it said on the tin!
 
That quote sounds reasonable to me although it could be 20% to 30% cheaper.... and I am a cabinet maker who does this type of work. (Providing the work would be up to scratch.. for crap work it should be cheaper)

You can't compare a retired person's rate to a tradesman... no one could live and pay taxes on 120 Euro a day... insurance alone would be up to 40 a week, running costs are a minimum of 30 / day and more like 100 / day for qualified people with fully equipped workshops. Then there's trips to suppliers etc so there's more work than just what you see...

There's also the painting... good luck finding a painter who'll do a good job for 300 to 400 or less...

I tend to use solid timber rather than MDF which is cheaper.. but you have specified thick MDF.. i.e 32mm or 40mm which is more expensive.

Making proper cabinet doors can only really be done in a workshop using professional equipment... there are some techniques for simulating the appearance using cheaper methods but you'd be better off with the 'real' thing. (Simulating cabinet doors would be done be glueing or nailing decorative strips around the perimeter of a rectangle of MDF, this is good for painted work in MDF but is unreliable for solid timber)

So I think 1,300 to 1,800 + 13.5% VAT is reasonable. This would be for a quality job... i.e lower area extends further out than the upper shelves leaving an attractive overlap, proper cabinet doors... high quality painted finish... no gaps between shelves and walls (i.e correctly scribed if required)... guaranteed and insured work... no tax dodging... thick vertical pieces running up the sides of the shelves (much improved appearance), proper cornicing at the top and correctly finished at the bottom... detailing according to your preference..

An example would be dentistry... 60 Euro for a 15min visit is expensive.. but would you let any Joe Soap do it in his bedroom for 20 Euro? It's a false economy.

I'd advise you check out furniture.ie for local cabinet makers... should be many on there who will do a quality job for about 1,600 to 2,000 in total...

Cheers
Joe
 
ophelia said:
Dublin6, thats sounds like an outrageous quote. I had this exact job done about 14 years ago - quite cheaply at the time. It was OK, but one of the doors has come adrift now and some of the shelves have warped with the weight of the books over the years. I am now going to get an Edwardian antique bookcase which I saw recently, it's very big, very beautiful, very sturdy and has passed the test of time. It is also going to cost less than what your carpenter has quoted.
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just like Joe before I`m also a cabinet maker and I know that any shelves I`ve installed haven`t bend over the years due to the weight of books and I`ve never had any doors fall off any unit I`ve made. Proper craftsmen build things to last, we take pride in our work, we do things properly and our work is judged with time. If you had a professional craftsman put your alcoves in in the first place you probably wouldn`t need to have bought a new book case.
 
Yes, SLF 'proper craftsmen build things to last', which is exactly why I am buying an Edwardian bookcase. Nowadays, 'Professional craftsmen' in my opinion just charge too much for too little.
 
Ophelia, I agree that 200 year old furniture is exceptionally well made... but in relative terms it may have been very very expensive when it was made and totally out of reach of the average person... it may have cost 2 months of the average wage at the time. Very few people will pay 4,000 for a piece of furniture nowadays... I believe your bookcase may have 100's of hours work invested in it.. who will pay for that to be reproduced nowadays?
 
ophelia said:
Yes, SLF 'proper craftsmen build things to last', which is exactly why I am buying an Edwardian bookcase. Nowadays, 'Professional craftsmen' in my opinion just charge too much for too little.
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It would seem to me that you were charged too much for too little when you paid for your alcove to be done 14 years ago.
Its a real shame that you`re not sponsoring local craftsmen instead of antique dealers.
 
It's really down to free choice, isn't it. Antique dealers have to make a living too SLF.
 
JoeBallantin said:
Ophelia, I agree that 200 year old furniture is exceptionally well made... but in relative terms it may have been very very expensive when it was made and totally out of reach of the average person... it may have cost 2 months of the average wage at the time. Very few people will pay 4,000 for a piece of furniture nowadays... I believe your bookcase may have 100's of hours work invested in it.. who will pay for that to be reproduced nowadays?
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Proper furniture properly made just as much then and now should be capable of fulfilling customers needs. A simple example is a shelf should not bend. Similarily one that doesn't isn't necessarily a work of art or exceptional. Surely craft is much more than how long something takes to make or merely meeting requirements.

Very often the most exepensive furniture is the cheapest, and it is sad that we are so increasingly driven by cost and not quality, to such an extent that finish is routinely compromised.

What a future legacy we've created.
 
ophelia said:
It's really down to free choice, isn't it. Antique dealers have to make a living too SLF.
Click to expand...

The thing you seem to forget is that the numbers of craftsmen in this country goes down every year and as time goes on those skills will be lost.
I have worked in the furniture restoration and I know that a lot of antique dealers are gone now.
Soon free choice won`t be there but you`ll always have cowboys who`ll be happy to do cheap jobs.
 
To be honest I wouldn't know where to start looking for a 'local craftsman' to build for example, shelving in an alcove.
Plenty of carpenters (fair and bad) in the yellow pages but how is the consumer supposed to know who is good and who is bad.
I don't see these craftsmen advertising their wares, and besides, when people move house they don't want to leave behind a built-in, potential future antique.
I really respect well-made products and William Morris and his contemporaries are true heros in my opinion but we have to be practical as well. Fourteen years ago, I just didn't have the money to hire a master craftsman to build my shelves - so I cut the cloth to suit my needs at the time.
 
Thank you! You`ve made my point for me. Its wrong to compare a cheap job with what a craftsman would do. Regarding finding someone to do this kind of job just ask around to find people. Most of my work comes from word of mouth. If you find someone in the Golden Pages ask for references and check them. I always ask my clients if I can have them as referees and people do call them to see my work.
Getting a good job done costs money.
 
I am a member of the National Guild of Master Craftsmen.
I`ve worked with wood all my life.
Started my apprenticeship back in 1983. I don`t make or restore furniture anymore because there`s no money in it any more which is a real pity. Instead I restore old sash windows which is a little known part of my trade. I`ll PM you my site if you like.
 
S.L.F said:
I am a member of the National Guild of Master Craftsmen.
I`ve worked with wood all my life.
Started my apprenticeship back in 1983. I don`t make or restore furniture anymore because there`s no money in it any more which is a real pity. Instead I restore old sash windows which is a little known part of my trade. I`ll PM you my site if you like.
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What is National Guild of Master Craftsmen? What recognised credentials do they have and what criteria is used for selecting members?
 
Scaper said:
What is National Guild of Master Craftsmen? What recognised credentials do they have and what criteria is used for selecting members?
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The bar council
city and guilds
chartered institute of accountants
college of surgeons
All of these started off as private organisations, the only criteria any of them have is the ones they made up themselves.
All I can say about the national guild is that they sent a surveyor out to inspect my work out in Dun Laoghaire and speak to 3 of my customers and they seemed happy so now I`m a paid up member.
 
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