Best UK Alcove Shelving | Updated

A Smarter Alternative to Fitted Furniture

Looking for premium alcove shelving that’s well designed, sustainable, and simple to install? ON&ON offers a smarter alternative to traditional fitted furniture. Our UK-designed modular wall shelving system is custom-made to fit your space, including narrow alcoves or larger wall-to-wall installations.

Made from over 75% recycled aluminium, our shelves and cabinets are engineered for strength, flexibility, and long-lasting performance—perfect for books, storage, and display.

Maybe the best part is it’s easy to take with you if you move home. The system is designed to last and its easy to reconfigure it into a new space or sell the system on to any new home owners.

Whether you're outfitting a modern living room or a compact home office, ON&ON shelving is:

1. Made to measure
2. up to 5m in length
3. Simple to install
4. Customisable with lighting, cabinets, hangers, and wall desks
   
5. Designed to manage your wall sockets, cables and wiring
   

Made-to-Measure Alcove Shelving

Our aluminium shelves are designed to hold heavy loads, even on plasterboard or cavity walls. Available in two depths—25.5cm and 34.5cm—and in black or white finishes, you can also choose solid wood fronts for a warmer aesthetic.

Our shelves can be cut to any size making them perfect for small alcoves or even running them from wall to wall across a room.

Add Matching Wall Cabinets

Combine your our shelves with made-to-measure wall cabinets, ideal for hiding clutter or storing multimedia equipment. Cabinets are load-bearing and Designed to support heavy items like large books, vinyl or files

Cabinet options include:

1. Fold-down doors with friction stays
2. Standard black or white finishes
3. Optional oak or walnut fronts
4. 36.5cm depth (with fixings)
   
   

Alcove Shelving with Oak Cabinets

Try combining our black or white cabinets with oak or walnut wood fronts. Both drawer units and fold-down door cabinets can be finished with oak or walnut fronts. You can also match the shelves above with the same wood finish or create a contrast using our standard black or white shelving.

Living Room Alcove Shelving

Shelves are fully adjustable, allowing you to reposition them post-installation to create different areas or zones for your books, decor, or multimedia. 

The design gives a floating appearance, as the shelves don't touch the side walls.

Alcove Shelving with Integrated Lighting

Upgrade your shelving system with concealed under-shelf lighting. Compatible with a standard plug socket, and fully integrated to hide cables within the system.

We recommend:

1. Connecting with Philips Hue Bluetooth smart plugs for extra control
2. App or switch-controlled lighting
3. Timer and routine settings via mobile or tablet
   
   

You can turn your alcove lighting on or off from the wall socket, alternatively we recommend using a smart plug. 

We have tried a few systems and would recommend Philips Hue bluetooth switches and plugs really because the interface is so simple. See below the Hue smart plug working with our Alcove shelving. 

 

Free Design & Planning Service

Our in-house planners will design your alcove shelving free of charge. Get expert advice and multiple design revisions until you’re 100% happy. Our planners do this via phone, email or site visit.

How to get started:

1. Measure the height and width of your alcoves
2. Take a photo of each wall (so we can see any sockets or switches)
3. Send us an idea of what you are looking for and we’ll do the rest

Download Measurement Guide | Download Alcove Design Guide

Are ON&ON shelves easy to install?

ON&ON’s alcove shelving is designed for simple fitting by any competent DIYer or handyman. All systems come with:

1. Setting out drawings
2. All fixings included
3. Step-by-step installation guide

Need help? See our installation article or see our technical downloads page.

Many thanks ON&ON

Alternative routes to buying alcove shelving?

We did explore the best way to fill our own alcoves with shelving before creating The ON&ON system. We started with the most accessible places to buy wall shelving. We looked into freestanding units at John lewis, Habitat and a few others. Some of the freestanding units are easy to assemble and looked good, but we didn’t like the unused space around them.

We thought some of the units or bookcases looked like a later addition or after thought to our room. We wanted to avoid the Ikea shelving route as we were looking for something better made and that could take heavy loads. Most of their single shelves are easy to wall mount, but are difficult to fit or adjust if you want a large number of shelves in one area.

We came to the conclusion that we wanted our shelving to properly fit the space. We wanted the shelving to feel like it’s part of the space and designed properly into the room. We even looked at traditional modular shelving systems and found the same thing. You can select different sized modules so you can try and use the best size or a combination of sizes to fit, but we kept finding we were left with either too much space or the modules were too big. Living in London apartments and flats made us realise that every sq/cm of space counts.

We realised we wanted fitted shelving or something similar.

So what are the other options for fitted alcoves?

We looked at the other end of the market, in our view well made but very expensive fitted storage systems and this was way beyond our price point and not quite the right look for us.

So for us it was either the DIY route or pay a carpenter, joiner or cabinet maker and spend the time to design it with them. Good cabinet makers like good builders are always very busy and getting several quotes seemed to take weeks. Prices do vary and you can pay a lot, but fitting is very labour intensive and will usually take several days. They are normally built from MDF and so are cut, trimmed and glued on site to fit. Alcove shelving built from MDF/particle board then has to be primed and then have one or two coats of paint applied which will take a few more days.

We obviously like modern buildings but we also like old properties with traditional features, but tend to combine these with modern furniture. All we wanted was for our shelving to be simple and a well made part of our home, something straightforward and uncomplicated. We wanted to create a contemporary fitted system and avoid traditional looking alcove shelving or cabinets with embellished trims and moldings. 

DIY alcove shelving

For many people DIY used to be the best way to improve your home, and now there’s some great articles and websites to give you advice along the way. We specifically liked this alcove shelving article www.practicaldiy.com as there’s plenty of detail and if you’re not experienced in DIY in our opinion the more detail the better. Alternatively try Natalie Morris and her article in the Metro 10 Steps to Building your Alcove Shelving. If you can it is a great way to add storage and display space to your home. Many people do build their own alcove shelving and it is really rewarding if you have the time. After you’ve bought all the materials, cut and fitted everything you then have to spend several days priming and painting everything.

This is how we started ON&ON, building wall shelving over the years for our own family homes, designing and making something that’s well made and fits. We understand the time, effort and costs that are needed to make your own shelves.

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