A full-height fitted storage run across a hall wall, two tall doors in bare board with pale green panels either side of an open bay holding shelves, a timber top and a small two-door cupboard, all under a bare timber cornice on a flagstone floor.

Horsham

Fitted hall storage run, Horsham

A full-height run along one hall wall: a tall cupboard at each end with a hanging rail and shelves, and an open bay between them over a low cupboard.

Town: Horsham

One wall of a hall, filled floor to ceiling. A tall cupboard at each end with a hanging rail and shelves inside, and an open bay between them: shelves above, a timber top, and a small cupboard underneath.

Three boxes made to read as one

The run is three carcasses. Nothing about that is unusual. What takes the setting out is making them stop looking like three.

The two tall bays are not the same width. So the eye is given something else to follow instead: the cornice above and the plinth below run unbroken from one end of the run to the other, straight past all three bays.

Where the difference goes

The front of a run like this is set out plumb, level and straight, because that is the part everyone looks at every day. The wall behind it rarely is.

That difference has to be absorbed somewhere. It can go into the fronts, which means a door with a gap that tapers down its edge — the first thing anybody notices. Or it can go inside, out of sight. Here it went inside. Open the tall door and one of the shelves is not a rectangle at all; it is cut on a taper, running back further at one end than the other to meet the wall.

Nobody has ever opened a cupboard and complained that a shelf is deeper at one end.

The middle bay

The middle bay is left open. There is a timber top with a socket set into the panel behind it, three shelves above, and a small two-door cupboard below.

The shelves and the top have a timber front edge rather than being left as bare board. A board edge in a hall gets knocked, and a knocked board edge stays knocked.

How it went in

01

Carcasses in

Three boxes, built in together as one run, with the cornice above and the plinth below carrying straight across all three. A hanging rail in each of the tall bays; shelves, a timber top and a socket in the middle one.

Three fitted storage carcasses built into a hall wall in bare board, a hanging rail in each outer bay, shelves and a timber top in the middle bay, with a bare timber cornice above and a flagstone floor below. — Three carcasses, before any door

02

Fronts hung, still bare board

The doors and the low cupboard fronts are hung while the run is still bare board: the cornice, the plinth and the surrounds have had nothing done to them, and there are pencil marks still on the doors. Only the door panels have any colour on them at this stage.

The storage run seen down the hall, two tall doors in bare board with pale green panels flanking an open bay of shelves above a small two-door cupboard, with a doorway to a bright room beyond. — Doors on, run still bare board

The whole storage run seen from one side, a narrow tall door on the left, a wider tall door on the right, and the open shelf bay with its timber top and low cupboard between them. — The whole run, from one side

03

The open bay, and what is behind the doors

The middle bay is left open: a timber top with a socket set into the panel behind it, three shelves above, and a small two-door cupboard below. The tall bays either side each have a hanging rail and shelves, behind doors on concealed hinges.

The open middle bay seen straight on, three timber shelves over a timber top with a double socket set into the back panel, and a two-door cupboard with turned knobs beneath it. — Shelves, socket and a timber top

Close view of the middle bay, showing the thick timber front edge of the top with a moulding under it, the socket in the panel above, and the bare board cupboard door beneath with its pale green panel and pencil setting-out marks still on it. — Pencil marks and a timber edge

One tall door standing open on concealed hinges, showing a hanging rail with a shelf over it and low shelves beneath, one of them cut on a taper. — Behind the door: rail, shelves, tapered board

This project involved bespoke fitted furniture. See more work across West Sussex.

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