How to Plan a Fitted Wardrobe Project Around a House Move or Renovation

Most people commission fitted wardrobes at one of two moments: when they’ve lived in a home long enough to know exactly what the storage problems are, or when they’ve just moved in and want to get it right from the start. The second scenario is the more complicated one — and the more common one for the mistakes that are hard to undo later. Moving into a new home and renovating at the same time means managing a sequence of trades, decisions, and deliveries that depend on each other. Get that sequence wrong and your fitted wardrobe either gets installed before the walls are ready, or you’ve been living out of boxes for months while everything else waits to catch up.



Fitted furniture is not the kind of purchase you want to retrofit into a room that’s already been finished. The most cleanly installed wardrobes are the ones that were planned into the decoration sequence from the start, where the electricals, plastering, floor laying, and painting all happened in the right order around the joinery. This guide covers what that sequence looks like, when to commission, and what to have sorted before a fitted wardrobe company comes to take its final measurements. At Humphries Cabinets, getting the sequencing right is part of every design conversation with clients who are renovating.

When to Commission: Start Earlier Than You Think

The design and manufacture phase for a bespoke fitted wardrobe typically takes several weeks from final sign-off to installation day. That gap is manufacturing time — the panels are cut, edged, primed, and prepared off-site before anything arrives at your home. This means that if you want your wardrobe installed in week eight of a renovation, you need to have signed off on the final design in week four or five. And to sign off the final design, you need accurate room measurements — which you can only get once the plastering is done.



Work backwards from when you want the wardrobe installed. Add the manufacturing lead time (ask the company for a current estimate — it varies with their workload). That gives you the date by which you need to finalise the design. Then ask yourself: what needs to be finished in the room before accurate measurements can be taken? The answer is usually plastering. Walls need to be at their final surface — skim-coated and dry — before a joiner can measure the true dimensions. If you’re also moving a radiator or adding an electrical socket in the wardrobe position, those jobs need to happen before the final measurement, too.

This means the design conversation can start early — during a viewing, during early renovation planning, before any walls are touched — but the final sign-off on dimensions needs to wait until the room is plastered. Bringing a fitted furniture company into the conversation early, even before plastering is complete, allows the design to be worked out in principle so that the final measurement appointment simply confirms the dimensions rather than starting from scratch.

The Decoration Sequence: What Happens in What Order

The standard sequence for a room that will have fitted wardrobes is: first fix electrics and plumbing, plastering, second fix electrics (switches and sockets), wardrobe installation, then final decoration. This order matters because fitted wardrobes sit against the wall and can conceal electrical runs that need to be accessible later — so any sockets, light switches, or low-voltage lighting within or near the wardrobe need to be in position before the unit goes in. Running electrics for wardrobe interior lighting is much cleaner when the wiring is chased into the wall before installation rather than surface-mounted after.

Flooring is a decision point. There are two approaches: lay the floor before the wardrobe is installed, or install the wardrobe first and lay the floor around and up to it. The first approach means the wardrobe sits on the finished floor, which looks cleaner and makes future flooring changes easier. The second approach means the floor finish doesn’t need to run under the wardrobe, which can save on material. For most London bedrooms where the floor is the same throughout, laying flooring before installation is the tidier result.



Painting the room walls is typically done after the wardrobe is installed, not before. The wardrobe is installed against the raw or primed wall, and the decorator then comes in to paint everything — walls and wardrobe together — as a single final pass. Some clients prefer to paint the walls before installation and have the wardrobe painted separately, but this creates a harder line between the two surfaces and makes matching paint colours more difficult. Ask your fitted furniture company what they recommend for your specific project.

House Moves: Timing Your Order With Completion

If you’re buying a property and want fitted wardrobes in place before you move in, the sequence is tight but achievable with enough lead time. The moment you exchange contracts, you have a fixed completion date. Work backwards from that date to understand when you’d need to place your order. If completion is in six weeks and manufacture takes four to five weeks, you have one week to complete the design, which means the design consultation needs to happen as soon as the exchange is done, ideally using the measurements taken during a survey of the empty property.



Most fitted furniture companies can visit an empty property immediately after the exchange to take measurements and produce drawings. The room may not be in its final decorated state, but the structural dimensions will be correct. It’s worth flagging to the designer whether you plan to skim the walls, relay the floors, or move any electrical points before you move in — these affect where the final measurements need to be taken from and how much tolerance needs to be built into the dimensions.

If there isn’t enough time between exchange and completion to get through the design and manufacture cycle, it’s worth accepting that the wardrobe will be installed a few weeks after you move in, rather than rushing the design or compromising the sequence. Living without fitted storage for three or four weeks while you settle in is a much better outcome than having a wardrobe installed before the walls are ready, or signing off on a design before you’ve spent any time in the room.

Renovation Projects: Coordinating with Other Trades

If you’re renovating a room — replastering, moving electrics, relaying floors — the fitted wardrobe company needs to be part of that conversation from the start. The sequence of trades matters:

plasterers, electricians, and joiners need to arrive in the right order, and each trade needs to know what the others are doing. A joined-up project manager (or a client who is managing the sequence themselves) prevents the scenario where the plasterer has just finished, and the electrician needs to chase the wall again, pushing the final measurement appointment back by three weeks.

For loft conversions specifically — a common renovation type across Fulham and SW London — the fitted wardrobe design needs to account for the fact that loft rooms change subtly as they settle. New timber frames move slightly as they dry out; a loft conversion that was completed very recently may have walls that shift a few millimetres over the first year. It’s worth discussing with your fitted furniture company whether a recently converted loft is at a stable enough stage for accurate measurement, or whether waiting a few months will produce a better-fitting result.

What Humphries Cabinets Offers

Humphries Cabinets works with clients at all stages of the renovation and moving process, from early design conversations through to final installation once the room is ready. The team includes experienced carpenters who understand the decoration sequence in London period properties and can advise on the right timing for every stage of the project. See Fitted Wardrobes, Lofts Wardrobes, and Bedrooms for the full range, and contact us to start the conversation whenever you’re ready.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why Choose Humphries Cabinets

Getting the sequence right around a house move or renovation doesn’t require a project manager — it just requires starting the fitted furniture conversation early enough and understanding what needs to happen before the final measurements can be taken. At Humphries Cabinets, that conversation is part of every consultation, and the team has enough experience in London renovation projects to guide you through the timing without adding complexity to what’s already a busy process.

Contact Humphries Cabinets to arrange your free design visit and talk through the right timing for your project.