Made to Measure Drawer Units for Alcoves and Wardrobes

Most homeowners start looking for drawer storage after a wardrobe fitting, a loft conversion, or a stubborn alcove that no standard chest will ever fit. That's the gap made to measure drawer units are built for. Rather than picking the nearest size from a catalogue and living with the gaps either side, you get a drawer box built to the exact opening you have. This guide covers how the sizing works, what's inside the box, and how to fit bespoke drawer units into a wider wardrobe interior without guessing.

What "Made to Measure" Really Means for Drawer Units

"Made to measure" isn't a marketing phrase here. It means the drawer unit is manufactured to the width, height and depth you specify, rather than pulled from a fixed run of standard sizes.

Flat-pack furniture works the opposite way. A manufacturer picks a handful of widths that suit most living rooms and bedrooms, then builds thousands of identical units. That's fine if your space happens to match one of those widths. It's not fine if it doesn't.

Why standard sizes rarely fit alcoves or fitted wardrobes

Alcoves are rarely a neat, standard measurement. Chimney breasts, skirting boards and old plasterwork all eat into the space differently in every room. Fitted and sliding wardrobe interiors are even less forgiving. The drawer unit has to sit inside a wardrobe carcass alongside hanging rails and shelving, not stand alone against a wall.

Push a generic 600mm or 800mm chest into that kind of opening and you'll usually get one of two problems. Either it doesn't fit at all, or it fits with an ugly gap that collects dust and looks unfinished. A drawer unit built to the exact opening removes that guesswork. That's really the whole case for going bespoke.

Drawer Box Construction: Understanding 600 and 850 Drawer Boxes

Once you've accepted the case for bespoke sizing, the next decision is which drawer box actually suits your opening. Doors Direct offers two core sizes: the 600 drawer box and the 850 drawer box.

What the sizing numbers mean

The numbers refer to width. The 600 drawer box measures up to 600mm wide, 400mm high and 500mm deep. The 850 drawer box goes up to 850mm wide, at the same 400mm height and 500mm depth.

Both come as a complete two-drawer unit, fully assembled rather than supplied as flat panels for you to build. Choosing between them comes down to how much width your alcove, wardrobe column or storage bay actually gives you, and whether one wider unit or two narrower ones makes better use of the space.

Materials and build quality to look for

Whichever size you choose, look at how the box itself is built, not just the outer dimensions. Every drawer box we supply comes fully assembled with metal-sided runners, a soft-close action and a solid 16mm base panel, built to order rather than picked off a shelf. Metal sides hold their shape under regular use far better than thin plastic or basic wood-effect runners, and a 16mm base won't sag once you load it with clothes or linen.

One practical detail worth flagging before you order: the drawer box itself doesn't include a top or bottom panel. You order those separately, or you fit the unit between existing shelves, which is often the simpler route inside a wardrobe interior. A drawer unit built into an awkward alcove or between fitted wardrobe columns rarely matches the fixed dimensions of a flat-pack chest of drawers. That's why sizing options like the 600 and 850 drawer box exist in the first place.

Soft Close Mechanisms: A Worthwhile Upgrade

Soft-close runners come as standard on both the 600 and 850 drawer box, so you're not choosing whether to pay extra for the feature. It's worth understanding why it matters day to day.

A soft-close drawer decelerates in the last few centimetres and eases shut, rather than slamming. That sounds like a small thing until you're using the drawer several times a day, every day, for years. Repeated slamming loosens joints, wears runners faster and eventually leads to drawers that stick or rattle.

There's a quieter benefit too. In a bedroom, especially one shared with a partner or near a nursery, a drawer that closes without a bang is a genuinely useful bit of engineering rather than a nice-to-have extra.

Integrating Bespoke Drawer Units Into a Sliding Wardrobe Interior

A drawer box rarely works alone inside a wardrobe. Most interiors combine drawers with hanging space and shelving, so the drawer unit becomes one component of a wider storage plan rather than a standalone piece of furniture.

This is where planning the interior properly pays off, particularly if the wardrobe uses made-to-measure sliding wardrobe doors at the front. The doors set the overall opening. Everything behind them, drawers, shelves and hanging rails, needs to be planned to fit that space as one system.

Pairing drawer boxes with made-to-measure shelving

Shelves are available in matching sizes to the drawer boxes: a 600 shelf up to 600mm wide, an 850 shelf up to 850mm wide, and a 1100 shelf up to 1100mm wide, all 18mm melamine-faced chipboard with pvc edging and supplied complete with brackets. Because the drawer box needs a top or bottom panel, or shelves either side, pairing a drawer box with a matching made-to-measure shelf is often the simplest way to close off the unit and finish the run.

Used together, drawer boxes and shelving let you plan a full interior: shelving above for folded items, a drawer box in the middle for smaller things, and hanging space either side. For a broader look at how these components combine, our piece on bespoke wardrobe interior storage solutions covers the wider layout options.

Measuring Your Space Correctly Before You Order

Because every drawer box is built to order, accurate measurements matter more than they would with off-the-shelf furniture. Measure the width, height and depth of the opening at more than one point, not just once at the front.

Walls and floors are rarely perfectly straight, particularly in older houses. Measure width at the top, middle and bottom of the opening, and use the smallest figure as your working measurement. Do the same for depth, checking front and back of the recess. Skirting boards or old fittings can reduce usable depth further back than they appear at the front.

Common measuring mistakes to avoid

The most common mistake is measuring only once, at the most convenient height, and assuming the rest of the opening matches. Skirting boards are another frequent trip-up: they often protrude further than expected and can reduce the usable depth or width at floor level, even if the opening looks generous higher up.

It's also worth double-checking whether you're measuring for a standalone alcove or a wardrobe interior. Interior fittings need to account for wardrobe carcass thickness and any door track that intrudes into the opening, not just the outer wardrobe dimensions. If you're specifying storage as part of a larger project, our guidance for builders and developers ordering wardrobe interiors covers measuring across multiple identical units consistently.

Bespoke Drawer Units vs Flat-Pack and Off-the-Shelf Chests of Drawers

Once you've measured your space, the comparison usually comes down to price and how much you're prepared to compromise on fit.

Flat-pack chests and off-the-shelf drawer units are usually cheaper upfront. The trade-off is fit: unless your alcove or wardrobe interior happens to match a standard width exactly, you'll live with a gap, or you'll need to buy a size that's actually too small for the space available. Build quality also varies widely at the budget end, with plastic drawer runners and thin base panels that wear out faster than metal-sided, soft-close construction.

Bespoke drawer units cost more per unit width. You're paying for a size built to your opening rather than the nearest available compromise, plus fully assembled construction with metal-sided runners and a 16mm base. Over the life of the unit, that build quality tends to outlast basic flat-pack alternatives, which matters if you're fitting drawers into a wardrobe interior you don't plan to redo in a few years. If you're weighing the wider project budget rather than just the drawer cost, it's worth reading about what bespoke wardrobe doors cost alongside your drawer specification.

Quality Assurance, Guarantee and Nationwide Delivery

Buying a made-to-measure item online, without visiting a showroom to see and touch it first, understandably makes some buyers cautious. It's a fair concern, and it's worth addressing directly.

As a family business trading for over 40 years, we back every made-to-measure order with a 10-year guarantee and a three-stage quality assurance process before it leaves our workshop. Every drawer box goes through that same process, checked for fit, finish and drawer action before it's dispatched.

We deliver made-to-measure drawer units nationwide using our own fleet, so customers ordering online without a showroom visit still get a controlled, trackable delivery. You can find more detail on how that works for wardrobe orders generally in our page on nationwide delivery for wardrobe orders.

If you're ready to move ahead, measure your opening using the guidance above, then head to the 600 drawer box or 850 drawer box product pages to specify your exact dimensions and order. If you'd rather talk it through first, get in touch and we can help you work out which size, and which matching shelf, suits your space best.