Most furniture shops leave you to work out for yourself whether a piece needs to go on the wall. We put it on every product page, because if you're renting it's the first thing you need to know and the last thing anyone tells you.
Three labels, used consistently across the whole shop:
| Label | What it means |
|---|---|
| Freestanding | Nothing touches the wall. Stands on its own feet, safely, as supplied. |
| No drilling needed | Fits without making a hole — tension-mounted, weighted, leaning or freestanding. |
| Wall fixed, and we say so | This one has to be screwed to the wall to be safe or to work at all. Fold-down beds and desks, tall storage walls, wall-mounted tables. |
You can browse by any of the three. No drilling needed is 362 products; wall fixed is 25. We would rather lose a sale than have you discover the difference after delivery.
The one exception — and we won't soften it
Tall, heavy furniture with drawers tips over. Not often, but when it does it is usually onto a child, and it is usually a chest of drawers or a wardrobe with the drawers open and a toddler climbing.
The relevant standard, BS EN 14749:2016+A1:2022, covers domestic storage furniture and includes stability testing and requirements for wall-attachment strength. Furniture is designed to be stable in normal use — but a child hanging off an open drawer is not normal use, and no freestanding design is a match for it.
So: if there are small children in the home, fix tall chests and wardrobes to the wall, whatever the label on this site says. That means an anti-tip strap and four small holes. If you are renting, get your landlord's permission in writing first — in our experience they say yes to this one immediately, because the alternative is a liability they don't want either. Fill and touch up the holes when you leave and it is a ten-minute job.
We include an anti-tip strap set in the moving kit for exactly this reason. It is the one place where "no drilling" is the wrong answer, and we're not going to pretend otherwise to make the catalogue look tidier.
Your deposit, and what actually gets deducted
If you rent on an assured shorthold tenancy in England or Wales, your deposit must be held in a government-authorised protection scheme — TDS, DPS or mydeposits — under the Housing Act 2004. At the end of the tenancy your landlord can only deduct for genuine loss, and only with evidence.
The line that matters is between fair wear and tear — deterioration from ordinary living, which cannot be charged for — and damage, which can.
Scuffs on a wall from daily use are wear and tear. A row of unfilled rawlplug holes is not, and adjudicators routinely treat it as damage. The distinction in practice is almost never "did you drill?" — it is "did you make good?"
What we'd actually do
- Ask before you drill, and keep the reply. An email saying "fine, as long as you fill them" is worth more than any argument later.
- Photograph the wall before and after, with something in shot for scale and a date on the file.
- Use the smallest fixing that does the job. A 5mm hole fills invisibly; a 12mm one does not.
- Make good before the final inspection, not on the day. Filler shrinks and needs a second pass, and paint needs to dry before it matches.
- Keep the paint code. Ask for it at the start of the tenancy — most letting agents have it and almost no tenant asks.
If a deduction is proposed that you think is unfair, ask for an itemised breakdown with invoices, and use the deposit scheme's free dispute resolution service before agreeing to anything. You do not have to accept the first figure.
This is general information, not legal advice, and the rules differ in Scotland and Northern Ireland. If a deposit dispute becomes serious, Citizens Advice or Shelter will help for free.
Fixing without drilling: what works and what doesn't
| Method | Honest verdict |
|---|---|
| Tension poles, floor to ceiling | Genuinely good, and the basis of our tension-pole dividers. Needs a solid ceiling and a solid floor. Will not work under a suspended plasterboard ceiling. |
| Weighted bases | Reliable, and the reason our freestanding coat rail is heavier than it looks. Costs floor space. |
| Leaning ladder shelves | Fine for books and plants against a flat wall. Not fine against a skirting-boarded wall without a spacer, and not fine with a climbing toddler. |
| Adhesive hooks and strips | Work for light items on sound, fully cured paint. They fail on fresh emulsion, on wallpaper, in bathrooms, and in heat. Test one for a week before you trust it with anything you mind losing. |
| Picture-hanging rails and no-drill hooks | Good in period flats with a picture rail already in place — look up before you assume there isn't one. |
| Command-style strips for a mirror | No. A falling mirror is broken glass at ankle height. Mirrors get a fixing or they lean on the floor. |
| Sticky-pad "anti-tip" alternatives | They are not an alternative. If the piece needs a strap, it needs a screw. |
Furniture that moves with you
The average private tenancy in the UK lasts a few years, so we design on the assumption you will move.
- Comes apart for the next move — knock-down fittings that can be undone and re-tightened rather than glued joints that can only be assembled once. It's a filter on the shop.
- 800mm modules through the modular storage range, so a wall that suited a long living room can become two shorter runs in the next flat.
- Spare fittings kits, because the thing that stops flat-pack surviving a second assembly is one lost cam lock.
- A moving kit — felt pads, floor protection, anti-tip straps, and a wall repair set for the holes you're filling on the way out.
Before you order, if you're renting
- Check your tenancy agreement for a clause about fixings. Most have one.
- Ask permission in writing for anything that needs a wall.
- Measure the route in — see Will It Fit?. You'll be moving it out again one day.
- Prefer the version that comes apart, even if it costs a little more.
- Fix the tall chest to the wall if there's a child in the flat. It's four holes.
Sources
Deposit protection and the wear-and-tear distinction: Housing Act 2004 and the government-authorised deposit schemes. Furniture stability and wall attachment: BS EN 14749:2016+A1:2022, the European standard for domestic and kitchen storage furniture. Everything about filler, paint codes and adhesive hooks is our own experience, not a standard.