The benefits of built-ins and fitted furniture done right

There are many advantages to choosing fitted home furniture. One of the biggest advantages of this type of furniture is the amount of space that you can access compared with free-standing furniture. Many people are increasingly pressed for space in their homes, with items of furniture that are full to the brim. This means that any extra items that need to be stored often end up causing clutter on the floor or being left on the top of wardrobes and desks, getting covered in dust. This is of course impractical, as it leaves you with less surface area and also negatively impacts on the appearance of your home, making it look messy and uninviting.

A Real Transformation
Fitted furniture, however, transforms the look of your home, making use of every inch of your room for storage, unlike free-standing furniture which will almost always leave huge, wasted spaces in comparison. With fitted home furniture, not only do you get to eliminate the excess clutter for a much cleaner, tidier appearance, but the furniture itself also makes your home look more seamless, with wardrobes that stretch from floor to ceiling. You benefit from furniture with smooth lines and no ugly gaps. This can be a particular issue when you are looking for furniture for a room that is of an awkward shape, for example one that has tricky alcoves or that is impeded by a sloping ceiling, the latter obviously a frequent issue for renovated attics.

Since I work from home, a nice home office is a must. When I finally settle down and decide to live somewhere for more than one year, I will definitely be investing in an awesome desk and shelf system. I LOVE built in bookshelves.

What a gorgeous entertainment room - rooms which are often so hard to make gorgeous!

If my closet were half this orderly and efficient I'd be a happy girl.



Versatile Furniture
Fitted furniture can also be incredibly versatile. Remember that this type of furniture can be made to measure, meaning that you do not have to settle for the shape of furniture that you see on the manufacturer’s website! There are many fitted home furniture designers who can create ingenious solutions for your room so that space can be freed up in ways you never thought possible. This allows you to create a solution for each room so that not an inch of space is ever wasted in any part of your house. The space that becomes available as a result actually makes each room look bigger, along with being much more appealing due to the outstanding individual designs you can request on custom-made furniture.

A wide range of fitted furniture can be purchased, meaning that you can make your home look truly seamless by introducing the same style to different areas of your house, from bedrooms and box rooms to loft conversions and guest rooms.

disclosure: this post is sponsored by Neville Johnson

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Awesome modern furniture sale from modloft

If you're into modern retro or modern furniture you have to check out this sale. I'm considering one of the entertainment centers myself! The sale is going on at ideeli -to buy click on this membership link. It's free to be a member, and fast to sign up - but you must be a member to shop. As soon as you sign up you can shop the modloft sale. Just go to the "Home" tab and click "Modloft" The sales only last a couple of days and sell out fast!



this entertainment center - $815


this entertainment center (in three finish choices) - $675

gorgeous espresso dresser - $499

coffee table - $369

this shelving unit - $899

Click here to start shopping!

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A post-holiday orgainzation special: Those new electronics=more cords. How to manage them

Here's a DIY for you. When I saw the cord explosion behind my parent's entertainment center - all I could think was - "project!" Especially since I had it on good authority that the holidays would bring a couple of more cords into the mix, it was time to find a system to manage them. I'm sure everyone here can relate to this in some way, and this DIY costs $0 - not a penny.

Before - Here is the mess

Pretty bad huh?

Get yourself a dusting cloth, or electronic wipes, and your vacuum cleaner. Take this opportunity to wipe of the cords, consoles, and equipment while you're back there anyway. When you unplug cords or cables LABEL THEM so you know where they came from and what they go to. I used blank adhesive address labels and folded them around the cord at each end. Each end would be labeled with the name of the hole or device it goes into. You'll see this in the example below.

The end of each cable is labeled with the corresponding hole, i.e. " AV 1" or "Front Speaker - Left" You may find a labeling solution that works better for you based on your equipment.


In the middle of the project - don't worry - things might look worse before they look better.


Analyze if anything is hindering you from keeping the space organized and easy to maintain. For example, on the back of my dad's entertainment console, there were only two small holes for cords to be fed through. This made it really hard to ad a new device or change the settings on something.

So...being that the backing of the console was only fiber board, I traced a rectangle with a pencil and cut a much larger opening with a hacksaw. This allows easy access to the back of equipment, and provides better ventilation.

After cleaning and wiping everything, and labeling the cords, I put all the equipment back in the cabinet, rewired everything, and utilized regular household twisty ties to bundle the cords.

Labeled cords coming out of their respective equipment...


Cords bundled with twisty ties, with excess slack coiled up, and plugged back in. Using a power strip makes it easy to turn off everything in one easy action.

Labeled cables going into the back of the TV

The finished view from the front.

So what do you think? Do you have a mess of cords you've been wanting to organize in your house? Any good tips for managing cords?

For more cord management and electronic tips, check out last week's interview with Apartment Therapy's Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan on Techorating.

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