Best UK Alcove Shelving | Updated
ON&ON alcove shelving
If you’re interested in finding a happy balance between cost, quality and service we may be the best solution for all your wall shelving. The ON&ON shelving system is designed and manufactured in the UK. It is made from recycled aluminium (over 75% pre & post consumer scrap), made to measure and easy to fit and includes cabinets, clothes hangers and wall desks. It can be designed and configured into many different configurations, but may be the best part is it’s easy to take with you if you move home. As the system is designed to last many of our customers reconfigure it into a new space or sell the system on to any new home owners.
Alcove bookshelves
Our made to measure wall shelves are perfect for storing all your books. They made from aluminium and are designed hold heavy books even if the installation is on a cavity or plasterboard wall. You can choose from 2 depths of shelves 255 (25.5cm) or 345 (34.5cm) depths and both are available in black or white finishes or with solid wood fronts.
Our shelves can be cut to any size making them perfect for small alcoves or even running them from wall to wall across a room.
Alcoves with wall cabinets
Our shelves can be combined with our made to measure wall cabinets and great for fitting into alcoves. Available in our standard black or white finishes or ask our planners about our wood fronted finishes. Cabinets are 34.5cm deep or 36.5cm including the wall fixings.
Alcove shelving with oak cabinets
Try combining our black and white cabinets with solid wood front. Cabinets with drawers or fold down doors can be made with wood fronts. Shelves above can also have the same wood finish or be configured with our standard black or white shelves.
Living room alcove shelving
Shelves are adjustable and can be spaced at different heights after installation creating different display or storage areas.
Our shelves will fit even if both your alcoves are different widths.
Our shelves do not touch the side walls giving them the appearance they float within the alcove.
Alcove shelving with lighting
You can choose to have different finishes or undershelf lighting in your shelves. Lighting is simple to include in your design but they do need a wall power socket close by to work. All the leads are concealed inside the shelves and wall rails so you don’t see any visible wires.
You can turn your alcove lighting on or off from the wall socket, alternatively we recommend using a smart plug. This allows you to control the lights using your mobile phone or tablet. You can also set timers or routines so your lights can come on or turn off at the correct times.
We have tried a few systems and would recommend Philips Hue bluetooth switches and plugs really because the interface is so simple. See below the Hue smart plug working with our Alcove shelving.
We will be adding the full setup and steps on a separate page where we will also connect it to a Philips bluetooth switch so you don't need your phone to control your lights.
ON&ON Alcove design and costs
We have included a design guide showing how our system works and how you can create different configurations. Take a look at some of our collections to get an idea of our shelving system design and price.
Our planners will design your systems free of charge. Tell them what you’d like to use the system for, they will help advise you and set out your systems. Our planners do this via phone, email or site visit. They will provide drawings, samples and costs until you are happy with the designs. All our planners need to start designing is the height and width of your walls and a photo always help.
Measuring your alcoves
Download our measurement guide for alcoves and wall to wall systems as a high percentage of rooms do not have square or plumb walls, we recommend taking several measurements and then giving us the smallest to base our design around.
Free design & planning service
Our planners will produce designs and costs for you until you are happy with both. Draw on top of our drawings if you want to make any changes and send them back to us. Use the drawings as a guide to see if you have the correct sizes and heights on your wall. If you would like to see our shelves the fastest way is to use our sample service to help choose your finishes.
Are ON&ON shelves easy to install?
Our shelving system is designed to be fitted by any competent builder or handyman, we supply all the fixings and drawing needed to fit your shelving. You can also see our article alcove shelving installation or visit our downloads page for more technical guides and information.
If you are interested in seeing other customers systems take a look at our gallery. If you need more information please contact our planning team.
Alternative routes to buying alcove shelving?
We did explore the best way to fill our own alcoves with shelving before creating The ON&ON system. We started with the most accessible places to buy wall shelving. We looked into freestanding units at John lewis, Habitat and a few others. Some of the freestanding units are easy to assemble and looked good, but we didn’t like the unused space around them.
We thought some of the units or bookcases looked like a later addition or after thought to our room. We wanted to avoid the Ikea shelving route as we were looking for something better made and that could take heavy loads. Most of their single shelves are easy to wall mount, but are difficult to fit or adjust if you want a large number of shelves in one area.
We came to the conclusion that we wanted our shelving to properly fit the space. We wanted the shelving to feel like it’s part of the space and designed properly into the room. We even looked at traditional modular shelving systems and found the same thing. You can select different sized modules so you can try and use the best size or a combination of sizes to fit, but we kept finding we were left with either too much space or the modules were too big. Living in London apartments and flats made us realise that every sq/cm of space counts.
We realised we wanted fitted shelving or something similar.
So what are the other options for fitted alcoves?
We looked at the other end of the market, in our view well made but very expensive fitted storage systems and this was way beyond our price point and not quite the right look for us.
So for us it was either the DIY route or pay a carpenter, joiner or cabinet maker and spend the time to design it with them. Good cabinet makers like good builders are always very busy and getting several quotes seemed to take weeks. Prices do vary and you can pay a lot, but fitting is very labour intensive and will usually take several days. They are normally built from MDF and so are cut, trimmed and glued on site to fit. Alcove shelving built from MDF/particle board then has to be primed and then have one or two coats of paint applied which will take a few more days.
We obviously like modern buildings but we also like old properties with traditional features, but tend to combine these with modern furniture. All we wanted was for our shelving to be simple and a well made part of our home, something straightforward and uncomplicated. We wanted to create a contemporary fitted system and avoid traditional looking alcove shelving or cabinets with embellished trims and moldings.
DIY alcove shelving
For many people DIY used to be the best way to improve your home, and now there’s some great articles and websites to give you advice along the way. We specifically liked this alcove shelving article www.practicaldiy.com as there’s plenty of detail and if you’re not experienced in DIY in our opinion the more detail the better. Alternatively try Natalie Morris and her article in the Metro 10 Steps to Building your Alcove Shelving. If you can it is a great way to add storage and display space to your home. Many people do build their own alcove shelving and it is really rewarding if you have the time. After you’ve bought all the materials, cut and fitted everything you then have to spend several days priming and painting everything.
This is how we started ON&ON, building wall shelving over the years for our own family homes, designing and making something that’s well made and fits. We understand the time, effort and costs that are needed to make your own shelves.
Many thanks ON&ON
