Bespoke bedroom furniture: beds, headboards, bedsides and desks

Bedrooms are usually the most awkward rooms in a London property: chimney breasts, bay windows, sloping ceilings over stairs, and doors that swing into the one wall long enough for a bed. Freestanding furniture leaves gaps on either side and never quite fits.

Fitted pieces solve the geometry and quietly add storage. A headboard wall with integrated bedsides can add drawers, lighting, sockets and reading lights within the same footprint as a bed pushed against a wall.

A full-width panelled or upholstered headboard wall centres the bed, hides an off-centre chimney breast and gives somewhere to mount lights. Typical heights run from 1,100 millimetres for a low panel to full height where the wall becomes the room's main feature.

Detail it with the room: a simple flat-panel with a shadow gap suits modern interiors; a beaded or fielded panel matches Victorian and Edwardian mouldings. Upholstered inserts add acoustic softness, which matters more in hard-floored flats than people expect.

Fitted bedsides can be shallower than freestanding ones and still work, because they can be exactly the depth you need. Around 350 to 450 millimetres deep and 500 to 600 wide suits most beds, with the top surface level with or slightly above the mattress.

Build in what you actually use at night: a drawer, an open shelf for a book, a USB and mains socket at the back, and a reading light either surface-mounted or recessed into the headboard. Add a small cable slot so a charging lead does not have to hang over the front edge.

A bay window is dead space until it has a seat in it. Build the seat at 420 to 450 millimetres finished height, with drawers or a lift-up lid below. If a radiator sits in the bay, either relocate it or design a vented front so heat still reaches the room.

Cushion the seat properly - a 75 to 100 millimetre foam pad with a fitted cover - or nobody will sit there. Line the box with a breathable finish if it will hold bedding.

A fitted desk in a bedroom needs to work as furniture, not as an office. Keep the top at 720 to 740 millimetres, hide cable management inside a shallow rear void, and design one drawer deep enough for a laptop so the desk clears at the end of the day.

A dressing table can be the same piece with a lift-up mirror or a wall mirror above. Where the room is small, a pull-out or drop-down top gives the same function and disappears when not in use.

Painted MDF suits panelling and carcasses; solid timber suits edges, drawer boxes and anything that takes wear. Veneered oak, walnut and ash give warmth against pale walls and are worth specifying with sequenced grain across adjacent fronts.

In bedrooms, sheen level matters. A dead-flat paint marks easily around a headboard; a mid-sheen eggshell or a satin lacquer cleans well and still looks soft under lamplight.

Bedroom joinery has to be co-ordinated with first fix. Decide bedside socket heights, whether reading lights are switched at the bed or the door, whether you want two-way switching for the main light, and where the television or projector, if any, is fed.

Sockets are best placed inside the joinery, behind or within the bedside unit, so plugs and leads are hidden. That only works if the electrician knows the carcass positions before the walls are closed up.

Indicative London figures: a panelled headboard wall with integrated bedsides typically £4,000-£9,000; a bay window seat with drawers £2,500-£5,000; a fitted desk or dressing table £2,000-£4,500. Prices depend on size, finish and how much site scribing is involved.

Lead times generally run four to eight weeks from signed drawings, with one to three days on site. Bedroom pieces are often made alongside wardrobes so everything matches and is installed in a single visit.