Shiphay Manor
Next to the 1884 manor stands a ruined medieval barn listed at Grade II. Public footpaths round the school grounds give a good view of both.
Learn more about Shiphay Manor on Google MapsFitted Wardrobes In Shiphay
Is the main bedroom in your Shiphay semi still making do with two odd wardrobes?
Main-bedroom wardrobes, children's room storage and dressing areas for 1930s semis and later estate houses near Shiphay Lane
Shiphay's oldest semis went up in the 1930s along Shiphay Lane, Shiphay Park Road and Cadewell Lane, and their main bedrooms follow a pattern. There is usually a bay at the front, a chimney breast on the party wall with an alcove each side, and a door that leaves one decent stretch of wall. Most families fill that with whatever freestanding wardrobes came with them. A fitted wardrobe built across the chimney wall, using both alcoves, holds more and frees up the floor. In the later houses towards the hospital the rooms are simpler and squarer, which suits a single long run. We make both kinds at our Barton workshop, only a few minutes away.
Book A Wardrobe Visit In Shiphay
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
Bays, alcoves and a 1930s bedroom
Shiphay's 1930s semis follow a pattern: a bay at the front, a chimney breast with an alcove on each side. Built well, those alcoves give you two wardrobes that look like part of the house.
Luke has done joinery from childhood, as others in his family have. He knows these rooms because experience teaches you to read a wall before you trust it. Luke and the team make each alcove its own unit.
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Shiphay
1930s bays and later family layouts
Shiphay grew out of farmland that once belonged to Torre Abbey and later to the Kitson family, whose manor was rebuilt in red sandstone in 1884. The houses came in waves through the twentieth century, starting with bay-fronted semis with hipped roofs and the odd mock-Tudor gable. Their bedrooms are close to square, the ceilings are an ordinary height and the walls are mostly brick under plaster. That combination makes fitting straightforward, so the design time goes into the inside: how a couple shares a wardrobe, or how a teenager's room can hold clothes, a desk and a guitar.
Later streets filled the fields towards Torbay Hospital with family houses built to the usual postwar plan. The main bedroom in those is often the most generous room in the house, with a clear wall that can take a full run of doors from corner to corner. If the windows in either kind of house are due too, our page on timber windows and doors in Shiphay covers the bays and casements.
The Case For It
Why fitted wardrobes work well in Shiphay homes
Both alcoves put to work
On the chimney wall of a 1930s bedroom, the two alcoves become deep hanging cupboards, linked by drawers or a shelf across the breast.
A clear his and hers split
We divide the interior so each person has their own hanging, drawers and shelves, with no more arguments over the rail.
Teenagers' rooms that cope
Wardrobes with a desk or shelving bay built in, so a smaller bedroom holds a young adult's things without overflowing.
Dressing area in the bay
A dressing table or low drawers fitted into the front bay, with the wardrobe opposite, makes the main bedroom feel planned.
Long runs in later houses
A straight, square wall suits a single run of hinged or sliding doors from end to end, with no fillers.
Finished to match the house
Painted to the same colour as your doors and skirting, or matched to a kitchen you have already had done.
Before You Choose
Comparing wardrobe quotes for a Shiphay house
Ask for a drawing that shows the interior as well as the doors. In a family bedroom the split between two people's clothes matters more than the door style, and it is the part a quick quote tends to skip.
Ask whether the price includes taking out any old built-ins and making good. Plenty of Shiphay houses still have them, and removing them properly is part of the job.
Check the hinges and runners. A family wardrobe gets opened many times a day for years, and soft-close fittings from a known maker, named on the quote, are worth insisting on. Our main fitted wardrobes page lists the interior sizes we work to.
Compared
Main-bedroom wardrobe options in Shiphay
For a typical Shiphay main bedroom, these four layouts are the ones we discuss most often.
| Chimney wall with alcoves | Full run on a plain wall | Sliding-door run | Freestanding pair | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Best house type | 1930s semis | Later estate houses | Rooms with little swing space | Any, short term |
| Storage capacity | High | Highest | High | Moderate |
| See the whole interior at once | Yes | Yes | Half at a time | Yes |
| Floor freed up | Most | Most | Most | Least |
| Needs level floor and ceiling | No, scribed | No, scribed | Yes | No |
| Relative cost | Middle | Middle | Lower middle | Lowest |
Our Process
From measure to fitted wardrobe in Shiphay
Our wardrobes for Shiphay homes go through the seven steps below, usually in about two months from first visit to fitting day.
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Home visit
We measure the bedroom, check the walls and note any old built-ins, sockets or radiators in the way.
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Sorting out who has what
We talk through each person's clothes and set out a split interior to suit.
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Drawing and price
A plan and elevation with the interior marked, the doors shown and a fixed price.
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Materials acclimatised
Boards and timber rest in the workshop to reach the moisture content of a heated home.
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Made in Barton
Carcasses, doors and drawers are made and assembled on the bench before delivery.
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Painted in the workshop
Finished off site in your chosen colour, ready to fit.
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Fitted in a day
Old units out, new wardrobe in, skirting returned and the room tidied. A later visit catches any door that has dropped.
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
Fitted wardrobe prices in Shiphay
£2,500 – £12,000
typical fitted wardrobe run
Shiphay wardrobes usually sit in the lower to middle part of our range. Square rooms, easy parking and a short trip from the workshop all keep costs down. A main-bedroom chimney wall with drawers costs more than a simple run in a child's room. See the joinery cost guide for more.
Guide range only, VAT included. Your figure comes from the measured visit and the drawing you sign off.
What moves the priceShort trip from Barton
Shiphay is close to the workshop, and most houses on Shiphay Lane and Cadewell Lane have a drive, so travel and delivery add very little.
Old built-ins
Taking out and disposing of existing wardrobes is listed separately so you can see what it costs.
Drawers and extras
Internal drawers, lighting and a dressing table add to the price more than extra hanging space does.
Questions
Fitted wardrobe questions from Shiphay
- Do I need permission for fitted wardrobes in Shiphay?
- No. Fitted wardrobes are internal work, and Shiphay is not one of Torbay Council's named conservation areas. Very few homes here are listed. If you ever plan changes to the outside, Torbay Council's page on whether you need planning permission is the place to start.
- Can a wardrobe go across the chimney breast in my Shiphay semi?
- Yes. We can run shallower cupboards or drawers across the breast and deeper wardrobes in the alcoves either side, so the whole wall is used.
- Are 1930s walls in Shiphay easy to fix to?
- Generally. Most are brick under plaster, which takes a solid fixing. We still check for cables and pipes before drilling.
- Can you match the wardrobe to our new kitchen?
- Yes. Give us the paint colour or a spare door and we will match the colour and copy the door style, such as shaker.
- Should I choose sliding or hinged doors?
- Hinged doors show the whole interior and need no track. Sliding doors suit a room where the bed is close to the wardrobe. We can draw both for you to compare.
- Can you fit a desk into a teenager's wardrobe?
- Yes. A desk bay between two wardrobe sections, with shelves above, works well in smaller bedrooms.
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 Shiphay
Shiphay is mainly homes, but three open spaces nearby are worth knowing about.
Torre Valley North
Torre Valley North off Old Mill Road has rugby and cricket pitches and an athletics track on rare flat ground.
Learn more about Torre Valley North on Google Maps
Windmill Hill recreation ground
Windmill Hill recreation ground has football pitches, a skate park and a dog area, with a path circling the edge.
Learn more about Windmill Hill recreation ground on Google MapsShiphay On The Map
Coverage
Areas We Cover
Shiphay is close to our workshop. We also cover all of these Torquay districts and nearby towns.
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
Sort out the main bedroom
Send a photo of the bedroom wall and tell us who uses the room. We will visit, measure and send a drawing with a fixed price.