Hammonds and Sharps offer bespoke, made-to-measure fitted furniture with a full design and installation service, differing mainly in aesthetics - Hammonds leans slightly more classic while Sharps offers a sleek, modern look. In contrast, Ikea provides affordable, flat-pack modular wardrobe systems like PAX, which require customers to handle the design, measurement, and self-assembly.
Let's break down everything you need to know to choose the right furniture brand for your home, budget, and style.
Hammonds: The Classic Bespoke Choice
Hammonds is a UK-based, family-run business known for its high-quality, custom-fitted furniture. Specializing in bedrooms, home offices, and storage solutions, they offer a personalized service from a designer visit to professional installation, making them a popular choice for homeowners looking to invest in a premium, seamless finish.
- Product mix: Primarily bespoke fitted wardrobes, bedroom furniture, under-stair storage, and home office setups. They focus exclusively on creating fully integrated, built-in solutions.
- Style/vibe: A broad range of styles from classic and traditional to modern and contemporary. Finishes include painted wood, real wood veneers, and versatile laminates, often with a timeless feel.
- Price point: Mid-range to premium. Bespoke wardrobes start from approximately £1,200 for simpler designs and can easily exceed £3,000 for more complex configurations and premium finishes.
- Quality: Emphasizes high-quality materials and British craftsmanship. Furniture is built to last, with sturdy construction and professional fitting ensuring a perfect fit and long-term durability.
- Customization: Fully bespoke. Designers work with you to maximize space, including in awkward areas like alcoves or rooms with sloped ceilings. Every element, from internal storage to door finishes, is tailored.
- Shopping Experience: Begins with a design visit at your home or a consultation at a local showroom. A designer measures your space, discusses your needs, and creates a 3D plan. The entire process is handled by their team.
- Delivery & Assembly: Includes professional, white-glove installation. A dedicated fitting team assembles and installs the furniture, handling all the heavy lifting and ensuring a flawless finish.
Hammonds is ideal for those who value a full-service experience and want a durable, perfectly integrated storage solution with a classic aesthetic.
Shop Hammonds: hammonds-uk.com
Sharps: The Modern Custom Solution
Sharps is another leading UK brand specializing in fully fitted, made-to-measure wardrobes and home storage. They position themselves with a sleek, modern aesthetic and innovative storage solutions, designed to optimize every centimeter of your space. Much like Hammonds, Sharps offers a complete design-to-installation service.
- Product mix: Extensive range of fitted wardrobes, walk-in wardrobes, home office furniture, living room storage, and solutions for sloped ceilings and alcoves.
- Style/vibe: Predominantly modern and contemporary. Known for sleek profiles, minimalist designs, and a wide palette of modern finishes like high-gloss, matte, and textured surfaces.
- Price point: Mid-range. Prices for fitted wardrobes typically start around £1,500 and can go up to £4,000 or more, depending on the complexity, size, and chosen finishes.
- Quality: Focuses on innovative design and quality craftsmanship. The furniture is robust and tailored to your room, with a focus on maximizing storage efficiency with clever internal configurations.
- Customization: Completely made-to-measure. Sharps designers create custom solutions tailored to your room's exact dimensions, ensuring no wasted space and a seamless built-in look.
- Shopping Experience: Similar to Hammonds, the journey starts with a free in-home consultation or a visit to a showroom. A designer plans the space with you and provides a no-obligation quote.
- Delivery & Assembly: Professional installation is an integral part of the package. A skilled team delivers and fits the furniture, providing a hassle-free, fully managed process.
Sharps is best for homeowners seeking contemporary, space-efficient fitted furniture combined with a personalized, professional service.
Shop Sharps: sharps.co.uk
Ikea: The Affordable DIY Organizer
Ikea is a global powerhouse in affordable, ready-to-assemble furniture. Its approach to wardrobes centers on modular systems, most famously the PAX series, which allows customers to mix and match frames, doors, and interior organizers to create a semi-custom solution. The core appeal is its low price point and Scandinavian design ethos.
- Product mix: A vast catalog of home furnishings, with the PAX wardrobe system as their flagship storage solution. They also offer other wardrobe ranges for different needs and budgets.
- Style/vibe: Modern Scandinavian design. Clean lines, minimalist appeal, and a focus on functionality. Finishes are typically laminate, foil, or veneer on particleboard.
- Price point: Budget-friendly. A basic Ikea PAX wardrobe frame can start around £50, with a complete, customized configuration typically falling between £200 and £1,000.
- Quality: Designed for affordability and function. Materials are primarily engineered wood like particleboard and MDF. While functional, the durability is not comparable to the solid construction of bespoke brands.
- Customization: Modular, not bespoke. PAX comes in standard frame heights, widths, and depths. While you can combine units to fill a space, it won't provide the perfect wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling fit of a Hammonds or Sharps solution.
- Shopping Experience: A self-service model. Customers use online planning tools or get help in-store to design their system. They are responsible for measuring their own space and picking up the flat-pack boxes.
- Delivery & Assembly: This is a key difference. The standard service is self-assembly (DIY). While you can add delivery and pay for a third-party assembly service, it's not the integrated, white-glove process offered by the others.
Ikea is the go-to choice for renters, first-time homeowners, and anyone needing a functional, stylish storage solution on a tight budget.
Shop Ikea: ikea.com
Hammonds vs. Sharps vs. Ikea Comparison
Price Comparison
This is the most significant differentiator. Ikea is by far the most affordable option. Its PAX systems allow you to get a highly functional wardrobe for a few hundred pounds. The pricing puts functional storage within reach for nearly any budget, though you'll be doing the work yourself.
Hammonds and Sharps operate in a different tier. Their prices, starting in the low thousands, reflect a full-service, bespoke product. You're paying not just for the furniture itself but for the in-home design consultation, precise measurements, professional craftsmanship, and white-glove installation. Between the two, prices are comparable, though final quotes will depend entirely on your specific design.
Quality & Construction
You get what you pay for in terms of materials and build. Hammonds and Sharps use higher-grade materials, including wood veneers and durable laminates, built onto solid carcasses that are professionally fitted wall-to-wall. This bespoke construction leads to superior sturdiness, longevity, and a seamless, premium finish that feels like a permanent part of the room.
Ikea's furniture is primarily constructed from particleboard or MDF with foil or laminate finishes. The components are mass-produced for flat-pack shipping and self-assembly. While perfectly functional for everyday use, the materials are less robust and more susceptible to wear and tear over time, especially if moved or reassembled.
Style & Aesthetic
All three brands cater to modern tastes, but with different focal points. Sharps leads with a distinctly sleek, contemporary style, offering high-gloss finishes and minimalist door designs that work well in modern homes. Hammonds offers a broader aesthetic range, with many designs that are classic, shaker-style, or traditional, making it a versatile choice for various interior designs.
Ikea's signature style is Scandinavian modern - simple, clean, and practical. While you can customize doors on systems like PAX, the overall look remains recognizably minimalist and functional rather than luxurious or traditional.
Customization & Sizing
Hammonds and Sharps excel here. Their “made-to-measure” promise is literal. A designer will plan a solution to fit your room's exact dimensions, seamlessly incorporating it around chimney breasts, under sloped ceilings, or flush into alcoves. The interior layouts are also fully customizable to your specific storage needs.
Ikea offers a modular system. You can combine standard-sized frames to approximate a custom fit, but it will never be a true floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall solution without custom carpentry work. It's excellent for regular-shaped rooms but can leave awkward gaps in spaces with unique dimensions.
Shopping & Installation Experience
The experience couldn't be more different. With Hammonds and Sharps, the process is service-oriented and hassle-free. Everything is managed for you, from the initial design consultation to the final cleanup after installation. This is ideal for those who want an expert to handle everything and ensure a perfect result.
The Ikea journey is a DIY venture. You are responsible for measuring your space, using the online planners, getting the (very heavy) flat-pack boxes home, and assembling the furniture. While you can pay for services to help with these steps, the standard experience is hands-on and requires significant time and effort.
Which One Should You Choose?
The best brand for you comes down to three factors: budget, your desire for a custom fit, and how much work you want to do yourself.
Choose Hammonds if:
- You want a completely bespoke, seamless fitted wardrobe that becomes part of the room.
- Your style leans towards timeless, classic, or traditional aesthetics.
- You are making a long-term investment in your home and prioritize durability and craftsmanship.
- You want a fully managed, professional service from design straight through to installation.
Choose Sharps if:
- You need a perfectly fitted wardrobe for an awkward space, like a loft conversion.
- Your interior design is sleek, modern, and contemporary.
- Space efficiency and clever internal storage solutions are your top priorities.
- You value a professional, full-service experience and are ready to invest in quality.
Choose Ikea if:
- You have a tight budget but still want a stylish and functional wardrobe.
- You are a renter or don't need a permanent, "forever home" solution.
- You are comfortable with (or even enjoy) a DIY project, including planning and assembly.
- Your room has standard dimensions that work well with modular furniture systems.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which is the cheapest option: Hammonds, Sharps, or Ikea?
Ikea is unquestionably the cheapest. You can get a complete wardrobe system for a few hundred pounds, whereas bespoke solutions from Hammonds and Sharps typically start at around £1,200–£1,500 and go up from there.
Do I have to build the furniture myself?
With Hammonds and Sharps, no. Their pricing includes professional installation by a dedicated fitting team. With Ikea, yes, self-assembly is the standard and cheapest option. You can pay extra for a third-party assembly service, but it's not part of the core product offer.
Which has better quality furniture?
Hammonds and Sharps offer superior quality. Their furniture is made-to-measure with more robust materials and professionally installed for greater durability and a more premium, permanent feel. Ikea furniture is designed for affordability and is not constructed to the same level of longevity.
Which brand is best for an oddly shaped room?
Hammonds and Sharps are specifically designed for this purpose. Their bespoke service can create furniture that fits perfectly in alcoves, under sloped ceilings, or around obstructions like chimney breasts. Ikea's modular system is much less flexible for these non-standard spaces.
Can you see the wardrobes in person before buying?
Yes. All three brands have showrooms across the UK where you can see and feel the materials, finishes, and build quality of their wardrobe systems. For Hammonds and Sharps, a showroom visit is often part of the consultation process.
How long does the whole process take?
The Ikea process can be completed in a day if the items are in stock and you are willing to transport and build them immediately. For Hammonds and Sharps, the bespoke route takes longer. From the initial design consultation to the final installation can take several weeks, depending on lead times and production schedules.
Will a fitted wardrobe from Hammonds or Sharps add value to my home?
High-quality, well-designed fitted storage is a very attractive feature for potential home buyers and can add value to your property. Because it is a permanent fixture designed to maximize space, it is often seen as a significant upgrade compared to freestanding furniture.
Can IKEA PAX wardrobes look built-in?
Yes, but it requires extra DIY effort. Many homeowners customize their PAX wardrobes with filler strips, skirting boards, and coving to create a built-in appearance for a fraction of the cost of a truly bespoke solution. This approach is popular among DIY enthusiasts and requires extra tools and carpentry skills.
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