Compton Castle
Sir Humphrey Gilbert, who claimed Newfoundland in 1583, came from Compton Castle. The National Trust has owned it since 1951, and the Gilbert family still live there.
Learn more about Compton Castle on Google MapsFitted Wardrobes In Marldon
Got a spare bedroom in Marldon that could become a proper dressing room?
Walk-in wardrobes, dressing rooms and fitted bedroom storage for family houses, bungalows and village cottages in Marldon
Marldon grew from a small core round St John the Baptist's church into postwar bungalows and later family homes with gardens and drives. When the children in one of those houses leave, or a household simply has a bedroom nobody sleeps in, a walk-in wardrobe or dressing room becomes a real option. A small bedroom next to the main one, lined with rails, drawers and shoe shelves, can hold everything two adults own and free the main bedroom of clutter. We also make conventional fitted wardrobes for the bungalows and for the white-painted cottages near the church, all at our Barton workshop.
Plan A Marldon Dressing Room
Tell us roughly what you have in mind and we will arrange a time to come and measure. A photo of the space on your phone is usually enough to start with.
The Joiner Behind It
Turning a spare room into a dressing room
When the children leave a Marldon family house, a spare bedroom often becomes a walk-in wardrobe or dressing room. Done well, it feels like it was always meant to be one.
Luke has done joinery his whole life, from boyhood, and it's a family trade. Laying out a whole room of storage is where experience shows most. Luke and the team draw it around the way you dress in the morning.
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Marldon
Family houses with a room to spare
For most of its history Marldon was farming country full of orchards, which is why George Hill's giant windfall pie in 1888 became a village custom, revived in 1958 as the Apple Pie Fair. The twentieth century brought the bungalows and family houses that now make up most of the village. Their bedrooms are straightforward rooms with plastered walls and flat ceilings, which means a dressing room can be fitted out without fighting the building. The design time goes into how two people share the space and what each needs within reach.
The cottages round the church are smaller, older and less regular, and wardrobes there are made to fit thick walls and low ceilings. Owners of those cottages are often thinking about their windows as well, and our page on timber windows and doors in Marldon explains who handles consent in this parish.
The Case For It
Why a dressing room or fitted wardrobe suits Marldon
A spare room put to use
A small bedroom next to the main one becomes a dressing room lined with storage, and the main bedroom gets its floor back.
Two people, two sides
We split rails, drawers and shelves so each person has their own space and nothing gets mixed up.
Doors optional
In a dressing room, open shelving and hanging can work well. Where dust is a concern, we add doors to part or all of it.
A central island if it fits
In a larger room, a low run of drawers in the middle gives a surface for folding and somewhere to put accessories.
Bungalow bedrooms planned simply
Straight walls and flat ceilings make a full-length wardrobe quick to fit in Marldon's postwar bungalows.
Cottages handled carefully
Near the church, wardrobes are scribed to old walls and kept below beams, with door styles that suit the cottage.
Before You Choose
Planning a dressing room in a Marldon house
Ask the maker to draw the room with you standing in it. A dressing room needs space to turn round, open drawers and try things on, and that clearance matters as much as the storage itself.
Lighting is worth raising early. A small room lined with cupboards can be dark, and lights built into rails and shelves are easier to plan before the carcasses are made than after.
Ask whether a door between the main bedroom and the dressing room is possible. A builder may need to form the opening, and the maker should help you decide before the joinery is designed. Our fitted wardrobes page covers interior sizes in more detail.
Compared
Fitted wardrobe or dressing room in Marldon
Marldon homeowners with a spare room usually weigh up these four options. Here is how they compare.
| Dressing room | Full wall in the main bedroom | Wardrobes in two rooms | Freestanding furniture | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Storage capacity | Highest | High | High | Moderate |
| Main bedroom floor | Clear | Loses about 600mm | Loses a little | Loses most |
| Uses a spare room | Yes, fully | No | Partly | No |
| Building work | Sometimes a new door | None | None | None |
| Space to dress | Plenty | In the bedroom | In the bedroom | In the bedroom |
| Relative cost | Upper | Middle | Middle | Lower |
Our Process
Creating a dressing room in Marldon
Whether it is a dressing room or a single wardrobe, a Marldon job runs through these seven steps.
-
Looking at both rooms
We measure the main bedroom and the room you might use for dressing, and check where a connecting door could go.
-
Listing what you own
Long and short hanging, folded clothes, shoes, bags and accessories, for each person.
-
Layout drawn
A plan of the dressing room with clearances marked, plus elevations of each wall.
-
Materials conditioned
Boards and timber settle in the workshop so doors and panels stay flat once fitted.
-
Built and assembled
Every section is made and put together at Barton, with lighting wired and tested.
-
Finished
Painted, lacquered or oiled in the workshop before delivery.
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Fitted and walked through
We install, scribe and show you how everything adjusts. After a few months we come back to tune doors and drawers.
Reassurance
What We Stand Behind
- Timber moved before it was cut
- Boards come into the workshop and sit there before anything is machined. Cutting a wide oak panel on the day it arrives is how you end up with a door that has cupped by Easter. In a bay where spring humidity runs high, that waiting period is not optional.
- Scribed to your walls, not shimmed to them
- Older Torquay walls are rarely square and almost never plumb. Every fitted piece is scribed to the actual surface on site. If you can see daylight behind a filler strip, the job was measured once and hoped over.
- Ironmongery rated for the job it is doing
- A drawer in a holiday flat gets pulled open forty times a week in August. We fit runners and hinges specified for that, and we tell you which ones we used, so in eight years you can buy the same part rather than replacing a whole unit.
- If it moves, we come back
- Solid timber is a material that responds to the room it lives in, and occasionally something needs easing in its first year. That visit is part of the job, not a callout. Say so and we will book it.
Budget
Wardrobe and dressing room costs in Marldon
£2,500 – £12,000
typical fitted wardrobe run
A single wardrobe run in a Marldon bungalow sits in the lower to middle part of our range. A fully fitted dressing room with drawers, lighting and an island sits towards the top. Access is easy here, as most houses have a drive. The joinery cost guide has wider figures.
Guide range only, VAT included. Your figure comes from the measured visit and the drawing you sign off.
What moves the priceSize of the dressing room
Lining three walls of a spare room costs more than a single wardrobe, but the cost per metre of storage is often lower.
Cottages near the church
Older cottages around St John the Baptist's and the Church House Inn have thicker, uneven walls that take more time to scribe to.
Lighting and extras
Internal lights, glass-fronted drawers and a central island add to the price.
Questions
Marldon wardrobe and dressing room questions
- Do I need permission to fit a dressing room in a Marldon house?
- Not for the joinery in an unlisted house. Marldon is currently in South Hams, so South Hams District Council handles planning and listed building consent, at least until the parish joins an enlarged Torbay council in April 2028. A listed cottage may need consent for fixed joinery. Forming a new doorway may need Building Regulations input. South Hams has guidance on listed buildings and conservation.
- Is a small Marldon bedroom big enough for a dressing room?
- Often, yes. Even a box room can take storage on two walls with space to stand. We check the clearances on the drawing before you commit.
- Should a dressing room have doors?
- It is up to you. Open hanging is easy to use but gathers dust. Many people choose doors on the shelves and open rails for everyday clothes.
- Can you make a wardrobe for a cottage near the church?
- Yes. We scribe it to the old walls, keep it clear of beams and choose a door style, often painted and simply panelled, that suits the cottage.
- Can you add lighting to a wardrobe or dressing room?
- Yes. We fit strip lights under shelves and in rails, wired to come on when doors open or from a switch at the door.
- How long does a dressing room take?
- Making usually takes six to nine weeks after the design is approved. Fitting takes one to three days depending on the size.
Feedback
What Customers Say
Rated 5 out of 5
“Our bedroom is in one of the old Warberries villas and the back wall bows by about an inch and a half across four metres. Two national firms measured it, quoted, then went quiet. These came, measured, and said it needed scribing rather than filling. The wardrobes go right into the corner and there is no gap anywhere. My husband keeps running his hand down the join.”
Rated 5 out of 5
“We run a bar on the harbourside and needed the counter and back fittings replaced without losing a summer weekend. They built the lot off site, came in on a Sunday night and had us trading by Tuesday lunchtime. Knowing the whole thing was made before they ever shut our doors is what sold it.”
Rated 5 out of 5
“Sash windows on the front elevation, and we are in a conservation area so it had to be timber and it had to match. They took a profile off the original, made new boxes in accoya, and the planning side went through without a query. From the pavement you genuinely cannot tell which is which.”
Rated 5 out of 5
“Two alcoves either side of the chimney, and they turned out to be 40mm different in width, which explains why the flat-pack ones we tried first never sat right. Made as a pair but to two different sets of measurements. Small thing, but it is the difference between looking fitted and looking bought.”
Rated 5 out of 5
“We let our place out over the season so everything gets hammered. I asked them to over-specify the drawer runners and they did, and told me exactly which ones so I can order spares. Three summers in, nothing has sagged. The last kitchen we had did not last two.”
Local
What To Do In Marldon
Marldon sits in farmland between Paignton and Totnes. Three places nearby make a good day out.
Berry Pomeroy Castle
The Pomeroys built a castle in the woods, then sold it in 1547 to Edward Seymour. English Heritage now cares for the ruins.
Learn more about Berry Pomeroy Castle on Google Maps
Occombe Farm
Occombe Farm off Preston Down Road has a farm shop with its own butchery, a café and a nature trail, all open year round.
Learn more about Occombe Farm on Google MapsMarldon On The Map
Coverage
Areas We Cover
Marldon is one of the villages around Torbay we cover. Every area we work in is listed here.
Across Torquay
- Wellswood
- The Warberries
- The Lincombes
- Chelston
- Babbacombe
- St Marychurch
- Cockington
- Shiphay
- Torre
- Ellacombe
- Livermead
- Maidencombe
And across South Devon
Or go straight to a service
Turn the spare room into a dressing room
Tell us which rooms you have in mind and who will use them. We will visit, measure and send a layout with a fixed price.