Solid Oak Bookcases Made to Measure

Bookcases are where made-to-measure stops being a preference and becomes the only sensible option. Books come in fixed sizes; walls do not. A stock bookcase gives you shelves at the wrong spacing, a gap above collecting dust, and either too much depth for paperbacks or too little for art books.

Made to measure, the shelves are set to what you own, the height runs to the cornice, and the depth is what your books need.

This is also where freestanding meets fitted, and most libraries we make are a bit of both. All of it is made in the same Suffolk workshop.

The freestanding patterns we make

Small open bookcase. An open carcase with adjustable shelves, for a bedroom, a landing or beside a chair. #116 is the single-width pattern.

Open bookcase with drawers. The same shelving over a bank of drawers. Pattern #116A, shown in cherry, with a version without drawers for a plain, taller run.

Double open bookcase with drawers, #116A. Two bays wide, with drawers across the base. The workhorse of the range, and the piece that suits a normal room best.

Single bookcase with two drawers and handmade handles. The same form with timber handles rather than brass.

Georgian-style bookcase. Eighteenth-century proportions: a moulded cornice, a proper plinth, a lighter and taller stance. Part of the Georgian collection.

Corner bookcase with drawers. Built into a right-angled corner, the shelves following the triangle and drawers in the base. It uses the least useful part of a room, and is harder to make than a straight one.

Victorian open bookcase #956. The heavier nineteenth-century pattern: deeper mouldings, a bolder cornice, a substantial plinth.

Architectural six-door glazed bookcase in mahogany. The largest and most formal freestanding bookcase we make. Six glazed doors, a full architectural cornice, and a proportion drawn from the room. Glazing bars are set out by hand, because at this size the bar pattern is what you see from across the room.

Glass display cabinets. Where the contents matter more than books. Single and double glazed cabinets and glazed corner cupboards are with the cupboards and cabinets.

Fitted bookcases and libraries

Fitted gives you the full height of the wall with nothing wasted above a cornice, the full width with no dust gaps, scribed fits against walls that are not straight, and the ability to build around a doorway or a chimney breast.

We make very large fitted oak bookcases, libraries with a desk built into the run, glazed sections over cupboard bases, and rooms where bookcases and panelling are one job. See fitted furniture.

Freestanding gives you a piece you can move, sell or hand on. In a listed building, or a house you will not be in for thirty years, that matters.

The hybrid is the usual answer. A fitted run on the long wall and one or two freestanding pieces elsewhere. Or a freestanding bookcase made to fill its alcove precisely, with a scribed filler and a cornice run to the ceiling: it reads as fitted and still leaves with you.

Shelves — the part that gets ignored

The shelf is the engineering problem. A shelf loaded with hardbacks carries far more weight than people expect, and beyond a certain span it will bow, however thick it is. So we set the span, the thickness and the position of any vertical division to suit the load. Adjustable shelving is standard; fixed shelves are stronger.

A shelf deep enough for art books will swallow paperbacks two rows deep, so we often draw deeper shelves at the bottom and shallower ones above.

Timbers

Oak, cherry, mahogany and walnut are the standard four, and every bookcase is made in all of them. Mahogany is traditional for a formal glazed library, oak for almost everything else, and cherry, as on the #116A pattern, sits between them.

Specials, quoted on application: character oak; pippy oak in light, medium and heavy grades; oak selected for medullary ray, the silver figure across quarter-sawn oak, within or without the timber; and clean timber with no knots, worth having on a long fitted run.

Modern and sheet materials are used where they improve strength: a stable back panel is better engineering than a wide solid board that will move with the seasons.

Finishes: polished, painted, limed, sand-blasted, rub-through paint, natural, or colour matched to a sample. A painted bookcase with polished oak shelves is worth considering. We can match furniture that is 100 years old to new reproduction purchases made the year before.

Order free timber and finish samples. A bookcase is a large area of one colour in artificial light, so judge it under the lamp.

Made to your size

Every dimension is open. Height to the ceiling or stopped under a picture rail. Width to the alcove. Depth to the books. Plinth to clear the skirting. Shelf spacing to the contents.

Tall bookcases are made in sections so they can be got up a stair; fitted runs are scribed on site. Send us the room dimensions, the ceiling height, the skirting and cornice profiles, and what goes on the shelves.

If the piece does not exist yet, our designers draw it first. See bespoke, commissioning, pedestal desks and bureaux.

Prices

Guide price on request, quoted by size, timber, finish, open or glazed, the number of doors and drawers, and, for fitted work, the site work. Special timbers, colour matching and natural finishes are priced on application. Standard lead time is typically ten to twelve weeks.

Frequently asked questions