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Making IKEA PAX look built in
The most asked question in the whole category, and the one nobody answers honestly: can a carpenter make a flat-pack wardrobe look like it was made for the room?
Short answer: yes, and it is often the sensible option
PAX is good value and there is no shame in it. If the budget is tight it will hold your clothes perfectly well, and the interiors are decent.
What it will not do on its own is finish the room. Put a run of PAX against a real wall and you get three things that give it away instantly: a gap above the units, a gap down one side where the wall is not where IKEA assumed it would be, and a visible seam between each carcass.
Closing those three gaps is a small job next to building from scratch, and it is the difference between furniture standing against a wall and something that reads as part of the house. We have done it for a number of customers, and for the right room it is the better value answer by some distance.
Three gaps, and what closes each one
The gap at the top
PAX stops short of almost every ceiling. A panelled infill is built across the top and scribed to the ceiling line, usually with a cornice so the joint is deliberate rather than a shadow gap full of dust.
The gap at the side
The one that bothers people most, because it is at eye level. A filler panel is cut to the shape of the wall as it really is — which in an older house is not straight — and scribed in so it touches along its whole length.
The join between units
Two carcasses pushed together leave a line. The units are packed level and plumb first, then the fronts are aligned so the doors sit as one run rather than as separate wardrobes that happen to be touching.
When it is the right call, and when it is not
It works well in a reasonably square modern room, where the walls are close to plumb and the ceiling is a normal height. Those are exactly the rooms where the gaps are small and the infill is quick, so you get most of the built-in look for a fraction of the cost.
It works badly where the room is the problem. A sloping loft ceiling, a chimney breast with a narrow recess either side, a ceiling high enough that the infill would be taller than the wardrobe: in those rooms you would be paying a carpenter to work around a box that was never going to fit, and building from scratch costs less and looks better.
We will tell you which of those two you are in. If a room is a PAX room, saying so is more use to you than selling you something bigger.
Questions
Is it cheaper than a fully bespoke wardrobe?
Usually, yes. You are buying the carcasses, doors and interiors from IKEA at their price, and paying a carpenter only for the work that makes them fit. How much less depends entirely on how much infill the room needs.
Will it look built-in afterwards?
Done properly, close to it. The giveaways on a bare PAX are the gap above, the gap down the side and the visible join between units. All three can be closed with panels scribed to the wall and a cornice across the top.
What it will not do is match a period room the way purpose-built joinery can. The doors are still IKEA doors and the proportions are still IKEA proportions.
Does it work in a room with a sloping ceiling?
Rarely well. PAX is a tall rectangle, and a loft room is the one shape it cannot be made into. If the room slopes, built-from-scratch is usually the only thing that uses the space at all.
Do you have to buy the PAX first?
No, and it is worth asking before you order. Unit widths decide how much infill is left and therefore how much the fitting costs, so a five-minute conversation before you buy can change what you order.
Got a PAX run you want boxing in?
Send a photo of the wall and the measurements. We will tell you whether it is worth doing and what it would take.