Our landing has a vaulted ceiling and a lot of space, and it was one of the things that really drew us to this house. It was also, for a while, a problem. Some of our neighbours have put a desk up there, or a sofa. We went back and forth on it before deciding to do something bigger and turn it into a second reception room, a proper hangout space for the kids, with the telly and the Switch and somewhere for books, games and toys to actually live.
We looked at the standard options first, Ikea Besta and the like, but a friend had a Tylko shoe rack in his flat and we really liked it. What sold us was how much control you get. You choose the number of shelves, the drawers, the exact dimensions, all through their online configurator, so it's built for your space rather than the other way round. We also love plywood, so we went for white with the visible ply edges left showing. It arrived in November 2021 and cost £1,065, which we're fairly sure was after a pretty hefty discount. Tylko seem to run them often.
Why Tylko is different from the standard options
Tylko started in Warsaw in 2015, built by a team with design and engineering backgrounds who were frustrated with the usual one-size-fits-all approach to flat-pack furniture. Nothing is made until you've ordered it, which is also why it took a lot longer to arrive than off-the-shelf furniture would have, which is worth factoring in if you're working to a deadline. You design it to the centimetre in their configurator, and it arrives with a click-together assembly system that means no tools, and, more usefully for us now, no tools to take it apart again either.
That last bit turns out to matter more than we expected when we bought it. We weren't thinking about moving house at the time. We were just thinking about the landing.
What it's actually like, years in
Genuinely as good as new. It's had a fish tank sitting on it at one point, and a rotating cast of games and toys as the kids have grown, and none of it shows. The configuration works brilliantly for what it needs to do, holding the TV and Switch at the right height and giving everything else somewhere proper to live rather than being stacked on the floor.
holding the TV and Switch, with a rotating cast of games below
Two honest gaps. We never quite worked out what to actually keep in the drawers, they look lovely, we just don't have a clear use for them. And I wish we'd configured more space for oversized books, the kind that don't sit well anywhere else in the house.
the top shelf, mid-week, unstyled
The room itself hasn't quite become the second living room we pictured. Day to day, the kids gravitate to the main living room, and we're generally in the kitchen diner, so the landing doesn't get used as constantly as we'd hoped. Where it really earns its keep is when they've got friends round. There's loads of space up there, and we've had some brilliant games of Just Dance on the Switch that wouldn't have worked anywhere else in the house.
The one thing worth knowing before buying
Think properly about what's actually going in each section before you configure it, particularly drawers and any shelf meant for larger books. It's easy to get seduced by how good the whole thing looks in the planner and end up with storage that photographs well but doesn't quite match what you actually own.
Was it worth £1,065?
Yes, on balance, though it's a slightly different "worth it" to some of the other pieces here. At £1,065 it sits in an odd middle ground, a fair bit more than an equivalent Ikea unit, but nowhere near what proper bespoke joinery would have cost. The unit itself has been flawless, no wear, no damage, and it's held up to a fish tank and years of kids' games without complaint. Where it's been less than perfect is the room around it, which never quite became the everyday hangout space we imagined when we bought it.
The next chapter
We're moving the unit into the attic in the new house. We haven't settled on exactly where it'll end up or what role it'll play there, but we're not worried about the move itself. It comes apart in the middle, the same way it went together, so it should be straightforward. We do know we love it and want to keep using it, we're just not rushing the decision about where.
Still worth keeping?
- Durability
- Excellent, no wear after years of daily use, a fish tank, and a lot of games
- Configuration
- Mostly right. Great for the TV and Switch, less resolved for drawers and oversized books
- Would we buy it again?
- Yes, though we'd think harder about the drawers and book space
- Best for
- Anyone with an awkward or oversized bit of space who wants storage built to fit it exactly, not squeezed into it
