Custom-built joinery that looks as if it was always there
The best storage does not look like storage. It looks like part of the house – as if the wardrobe, the bookcase or the cupboard had always been there. Custom-built joinery is what I recommend most often when someone wants more order in an older home, and it is also where the craftsmanship shows most clearly. This is how I think about it.
Start with the house’s own details
An older building already has a language: mouldings, door architraves, wainscotting, panelled doors, plasterwork. The first thing I do is measure and photograph those details, and then I draw the joinery so it speaks the same language. The same moulding profile, the same panels in the doors, the same white as the walls.
On Strandvägen the hall wardrobes run from floor to ceiling with panelled doors, a plinth and a cornice that meets the plasterwork. That makes a whole wall of storage feel calm rather than heavy.
My most important advice: build all the way up to the ceiling. A wardrobe that stops thirty centimetres below the ceiling looks like a piece of furniture. One that goes all the way looks like architecture – and you also get room for the things you rarely use.
The bookcase that frames a door
One of my favourite solutions is to build a bookcase around a doorway. The shelves rise on both sides and continue over the door, so the passage between rooms becomes a deep niche. It adds a lot of storage on a surface that is otherwise unused, and it turns the doorway into a moment.
I like to make the lower part with closed cupboards and panels that tie in with the wainscotting, while the shelves above get integrated lighting. The bookcase then becomes a light source in the evening. In the country kitchen in the archipelago a built-in bookcase with an arch does the same job on a smaller scale: the cookbooks live where they are used.
Walk-in closet: drawers, light and a ladder
A walk-in closet is a room where you start and end the day, so it deserves the same care as a bedroom. Plan around what you actually own: how many metres of hanging clothes, how many pairs of shoes, how much is folded. Only then do I draw the split between wardrobes, shelves and drawers.
Drawers are better than shelves for most folded things – you see everything and nothing collapses. Drawer boxes in light solid wood and brass knobs are details that make a difference every day. Lighting in the cupboards and glazed doors at the top help you find things, and a ladder on a rail makes the top cupboards usable.
In the walk-in closet on Strandvägen a round pouffe stands in the middle of the room with a rug on the floor. They are small things, but they turn storage into a room.
From sketch to installation
Custom-built joinery starts with a careful survey. I draw the fronts, mouldings and divisions to scale, and we go through what needs to fit before anything is ordered. That is also when we decide the material: solid wood, painted MDF or veneer, depending on where the cabinet sits and how it will be used.
The joiner then makes a sample of a door or a moulding, so we can see the colour and profile in the right light on site. It sounds like a detour, but it is the only way to be sure the result turns out as intended.
Allow several weeks for making and installing, and plan the electrics early if the joinery is to have lighting. I choose hinges, knobs and handles last, once the fronts are decided – they are what you see and touch every day, so they may well be a little better than necessary.
Custom-built joinery is an investment, but it often adds to both the function and the value of a home. Done well, it stays with the building for decades, and the next owner sees it as part of the architecture rather than a piece of furniture left behind. That is why it pays to do it properly from the start.
Mirrors, glass and glazing bars
Custom-built does not have to mean white and plain. On Grevgatan the bedroom wardrobes have mirrored doors with a geometric lattice pattern that returns in the doors between the rooms. The mirrors make the room bigger and brighter, and the pattern turns the wardrobe into the room’s decoration.
Glazed doors, glazing bars, a painted interior in a contrasting colour or a fabric lining inside are other ways to give joinery personality.
Finally: work with a joiner who understands old buildings. Walls are rarely straight and floors rarely level, and it is in the fit against the wall that a built-in cupboard succeeds or fails. Expect it to take time – it is worth it.
