Meadfoot Beach
Meadfoot is a shingle beach with a café and chalets to hire, looking out to Thatcher Rock. Agatha Christie swam here as a girl.
Learn more about Meadfoot Beach on Google MapsFitted Wardrobes In The Lincombes
Furnishing a Lincombes apartment or hotel room that guests will open and shut all season?
Hard-wearing fitted wardrobes for villas, serviced apartments and hotel bedrooms on the slopes above Meadfoot
A lot of the bedrooms in the Lincombes are not lived in by the people who own them. The stuccoed villas on the hillside above Meadfoot include hotels, holiday flats and serviced apartments, and their wardrobes get a different kind of use: a new set of suitcases every week, doors swung hard, rails loaded with wet beach towels. We build fitted wardrobes for those rooms and for the private homes alongside them. The brief changes with who will use it. For a let, that means heavier hinges, solid edges and finishes you can touch up between bookings. For a family house, it means making the most of tall rooms that were laid out to face the sea.
Price Wardrobes In The Lincombes
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
Wardrobes built for a new suitcase every week
Many bedrooms in the Lincombes are hotel rooms, holiday flats or serviced apartments. Their wardrobes get opened by a new guest every few days and need to stand up to it.
Luke has done joinery since childhood; it's a trade in his family. Making something hard-wearing without making it ugly is a balance experience teaches. He and the team pick hinges and runners with heavy use in mind.
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The Lincombes
Rooms arranged around the view
When the Palk estate's builders laid out the Lincombes, they cut terraces into the slope so each villa could turn its best rooms towards the open Channel. Inside, that often puts the bed facing the window and leaves the wall opposite, or the wall against the hill, for storage. Those back walls tend to be the drier ones. A sea-facing outside wall in this part of Torquay can run cold and damp in winter, and we would rather not put a wardrobe full of clothes against one without a gap behind it for air.
Hesketh Crescent, finished in 1848 and listed Grade II*, is the best-known building here, and its centre now trades as the Osborne Hotel. Around it are villas in their own grounds, many divided into apartments. Owners of those buildings usually have the windows on their list too, and our page about timber windows and doors in the Lincombes explains how we approach the seaward sashes.
The Case For It
Wardrobes built for how Lincombes rooms are used
Hinges rated for constant use
Holiday lets and hotel rooms see far more door openings than a home. We fit heavier hinges and runners, named on the quote, so replacements are easy to find.
Edges that take a knock
Solid timber lippings on doors and carcass fronts survive suitcases and hoovers, and can be sanded and refinished instead of replaced.
Air behind on cold walls
On a sea-facing outside wall we leave a ventilated gap behind the carcass and use a sealed back, so damp air does not settle in with the clothes.
Luggage space planned in
Guests need somewhere for a case. We build in a low luggage shelf or an open bay, so suitcases stop living on the floor or the bed.
Fitted round the turnaround
For hotels and apartments we make everything in advance and fit between departures and arrivals, room by room, so nothing has to close for long.
Matching across a building
A block of apartments can have the same wardrobe design in every unit, made in one batch. Spare doors and fittings can be kept back for later repairs.
Before You Choose
Choosing wardrobes for a Lincombes let or home
Start by telling the maker whether the room is a home, a holiday apartment or a hotel bedroom. The answer changes the hardware, the finish and the price, and anyone who quotes the same specification for all three has not asked the right question.
Ask what will happen on a cold outside wall. Close to Meadfoot, a wardrobe fixed tight to a sea-facing wall can trap damp behind it. A careful maker will suggest moving it to an internal wall or leaving an air gap, and will check the wall during the survey.
For a business, ask about spares and repairs. A hotel wants to replace a damaged door in a day, not order a new wardrobe. Keeping a spare door or two from the original batch is cheap insurance, and a decent workshop will offer it.
Compared
Wardrobe options for Lincombes lets and homes
Owners of apartments and hotels above Meadfoot generally choose between these four. The table looks at them through heavy use and sea-air conditions.
| Workshop-made, commercial spec | Workshop-made, domestic spec | Contract furniture range | Freestanding wardrobe | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lifespan under weekly changeovers | Longest | Good | Moderate | Short |
| Repairable on site | Yes, spares kept | Yes | Parts may be discontinued | Rarely worth it |
| Copes with a cold seaward wall | Ventilated back | Ventilated back | Usually tight to the wall | Can be pulled away |
| Uses tall villa rooms | Full height | Full height | Standard heights | No |
| Looks part of the building | Yes | Yes | Looks like a hotel | Looks added |
| Relative cost | Upper | Middle | Lower | Lowest |
Our Process
Making wardrobes for the Lincombes
Every wardrobe for a Lincombes room goes through these seven steps. For hotels and apartments, step seven is planned around your bookings.
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Visit and wall check
We measure the room, check which walls face the sea and test them for damp, then talk about who will use the wardrobe and how hard.
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Specification agreed
Domestic or commercial hardware, door finish, luggage space and any spares, all written into the quote.
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Drawings
A plan and elevation per room type. For a block of apartments, one drawing can cover every identical unit.
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Materials brought to moisture
Boards and timber settle in the workshop before cutting, so doors stay flat once fitted.
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Batch making
Wardrobes for several rooms are made together and trial-assembled, which keeps them identical and the unit price down.
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Hard-wearing finish
A sprayed lacquer or durable paint applied in the workshop, chosen so scuffs can be touched in rather than resprayed.
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Fitting and a later check
We fit room by room, scribe to the walls and test every door. After the busy season we come back to adjust anything that has worked loose.
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 the Lincombes
£2,500 – £12,000
typical fitted wardrobe run
A single domestic wardrobe in a Lincombes villa sits around the middle of our range. Commercial-specification hardware adds to each unit, but a batch of identical wardrobes for a block of apartments brings the price per room down. Tall villa bedrooms use more material. The joinery cost guide covers what else changes the figure.
Guide range only, VAT included. Your figure comes from the measured visit and the drawing you sign off.
What moves the priceSteep plots above Meadfoot
Villas on terraces cut into the hillside can have long paths or steps from the road, which adds carrying time on delivery day.
Number of rooms
Ten identical apartment wardrobes cost much less per unit than ten different ones, because the setting out and machining are done once.
Commercial hardware
Heavy-duty hinges, runners and rails cost more than domestic ones and are worth it in rooms that change hands every week.
Questions
Lincombes wardrobe questions
- Do I need permission to fit wardrobes in a Lincombes building?
- Not usually for an unlisted building. The Lincombes Conservation Area, designated by Torbay Council in 1975, controls mainly the outside. Listed buildings are different: Hesketh Crescent is Grade II*, and fixed joinery inside a listed building can need listed building consent. Apartment leases often need the freeholder's agreement too. Torbay Council's listed building consent page explains when to apply.
- Is it a problem putting a wardrobe on a sea-facing wall in the Lincombes?
- It can be. Exposed walls facing Meadfoot run colder in winter, and a wardrobe pushed tight against one can collect condensation behind it. We leave an air gap and use a sealed back, or suggest an internal wall instead.
- Can you fit out a whole block of holiday apartments?
- Yes. We make the wardrobes in a batch, deliver them together and fit them unit by unit, working round your changeover days.
- Do you keep spare doors for hotel wardrobes?
- We can make one or two extra doors and drawer fronts with the original batch so they match exactly. If a guest damages one, it can be swapped the same day.
- What finish copes best with hotel use?
- A sprayed lacquer or a hard-wearing paint system applied in the workshop. Both can be cleaned daily, and small scuffs can be touched in without respraying the whole door.
- How long does it take to fit wardrobes in several rooms?
- Making takes six to nine weeks from approved drawings. On site, two or three rooms a day is typical, so a small block of apartments can be done in a week of changeovers.
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 The Lincombes
Guests staying in the Lincombes ask where to go, and these three are all within walking distance of the villas.
Daddyhole Plain
Daddyhole Plain is a high limestone plateau with a wide view over the bay. A Second World War mine watchers' post stands above Peaked Tor Cove.
Learn more about Daddyhole Plain on Google Maps
Beacon Cove
Below the Imperial Hotel, Beacon Cove shows bands of red rock in its cliffs. Christie wrote about nearly drowning here before a boatman rescued her.
Learn more about Beacon Cove on Google MapsThe Lincombes On The Map
Coverage
Areas We Cover
We make and fit wardrobes for homes, lets and hotels across 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
Fitting out rooms in the Lincombes?
Tell us how many rooms, who uses them and when you can give us access. We will measure, draw a design for each room type and send a fixed price.