Sockets, Switches and Electrics Behind Fitted Furniture

Relocate it. The socket moves to a wall that will stay clear, or to a position that remains accessible once the furniture is in. Usually the cleanest answer for a bedroom where the only socket is on the wall the wardrobe will cover.

Decommission it properly. If a socket genuinely is not needed, an electrician can remove and make it safe. What should never happen is a live socket simply being boxed in behind a panel where nobody can reach it.

Design around it. Sometimes the socket is worth keeping exactly where it is. A cut-out in the plinth, a service void behind a drawer bank, or a section left open can keep it usable — and this is where a bespoke approach has an advantage over a stock carcass, because the unit is drawn around the room's actual features rather than assembled to a standard size.

Which of the three is right is usually decided by one question: will you ever need that supply again? A socket on the wall behind a wardrobe that will hold nothing but clothes is a candidate for relocation or removal. A socket that will end up feeding internal lighting, a charging drawer or a television is one to design around and keep reachable. Answering that question at the drawings stage costs nothing. Answering it after installation means either living with a compromise or taking furniture apart.

Worth planning positively rather than just defensively:

Inside the wardrobe. Internal lighting needs a supply. Where you want lighting to respond to the doors opening, the wiring position has to be agreed before the carcass is built.

At a dressing area. If your wardrobe run includes a dressing table or vanity, you will want power at that height for a hairdryer, straighteners or a mirror. Behind the unit is no use; in a drawer or under the counter is.

At a desk. A fitted desk needs power and data at the right height, with a route for cables that does not end in a tangle at your feet. Custom office desks are designed with cable management built in, but only if the electrical positions are known in advance.

Behind a media unit. Entertainment units carry the most cabling of anything in the house, and they also need those cables to remain reachable. Nothing ages worse than a beautiful media wall you have to dismantle to change a plug.

Internal lighting is the single most common retrofit request, and it is the one that is hardest to add neatly afterwards. Wiring routed through a carcass while it is being built disappears completely. Wiring added later has to go somewhere visible.

Three things are worth settling early.

Where the light actually needs to be. A deep top cupboard, a shoe section and a hanging rail all have different problems. Lighting that makes a wardrobe look good in a photograph is not necessarily lighting that helps you find a navy jacket at seven in the morning.

How it switches. Lighting that comes on with the door is the arrangement most people want, and it has to be planned into the carcass rather than added to it. A wall switch, by contrast, needs to sit somewhere that will still be reachable once the furniture is in.

Where the supply and any control gear live. Anything electrical eventually needs attention. Burying it where it can only be reached by removing joinery is the mistake to avoid — the same principle that applies to sockets applies to everything behind the panels.

None of this is complicated, but all of it is a drawings-stage decision rather than an installation-day one.

This is worth being clear about, because it affects your schedule.

Humphries designs, builds and installs the cabinetry, and hand-paints and finishes it. Electrical work is your electrician's. The two need coordinating — and the order matters: electrical changes come before the furniture is measured and built, not after.

The process runs from initial design consultation through a full 3D drawings package to installation and painting. The drawings stage is exactly where socket positions should be marked and agreed, because it is the last easy moment to change them.

The sequence that causes the fewest problems looks like this. Positions are agreed on the drawings. Your electrician carries out the work. The wall is made good afterwards, so there is no fresh plaster repair sitting behind a finished unit. Only then is the furniture finally measured and built. Reversing any two of those steps tends to cost either time or a compromise, and usually both.

Build in a little slack as well. Electricians book up, and a room that needs chasing out and re-plastering needs drying time before anything is fixed to it.

When you brief them, the useful questions are about access and timing rather than about cable.

Can this socket be relocated to a wall that will stay clear, and where would you put it?
If it is no longer needed, can it be removed and made safe rather than left buried?
What needs to remain reachable in this room — controls, a thermostat, an isolator?
Will the wall need making good afterwards, and how long before it can be built against?
How much notice do you need, given the furniture is being measured on a fixed date?

Share the drawings with them. An electrician working from an elevation showing exactly where the carcass, the plinth and the drawer bank land can put a socket somewhere genuinely useful, rather than guessing at the outline of a wardrobe that does not exist yet.

Assuming it'll be sorted on the day. Electrical work on installation morning means either a delay or a compromise

Burying a live socket. It should be relocated or properly decommissioned, never hidden.

Forgetting the switch. A wardrobe run past a doorway can leave a light switch awkward to reach or half-covered.

Under-providing at a desk. Everyone underestimates how many outlets a working desk needs.

Leaving cables unreachable. Anything that will be unplugged again should be reachable without tools.

Can a fitted wardrobe be built over a plug socket?
It should not simply be covered. The socket should be relocated, properly decommissioned by an electrician, or designed around so it stays accessible.
Who does the electrical work for fitted furniture?
Your electrician. Humphries designs, builds, installs and finishes the cabinetry; electrical work is arranged separately and should happen before the furniture is built.
When should sockets be moved?
Before the furniture is measured and made — changes after installation are far more disruptive.
Can lighting be added to a wardrobe later?
It can, but rarely as neatly. Wiring built into the carcass is invisible; wiring added afterwards has to run somewhere you can see.
What about the light switch?
Check it early. A run of furniture passing a doorway can leave a switch half-covered or awkward to reach, and moving it is an electrician's work like any other.
Where should sockets go for a fitted desk?
At working height with cable management designed in, agreed at the drawings stage.