Owning your own home

I'm going to resist posting a thesis on MDF but suffice to say there are many different thicknesses and qualities, I have pieces of 20 year old sheets and the middle is way more dense which used to make the whole sheet heavier. Gradually quality has changed and the choice of thicknesses and various moisture resistance etc. have become more widely available. Veneered MDF is very popular now, despite the extra cost per sheet because the finish is uniform/factory and the cost of painting can be avoided. I've seen veneered MDF so tough and good looking recently that it's hard to think of a better option.

So you've got 2 alcoves, ballpark £1500, I'd be revising that figure up or down following a conversation with you, the customer but I'd expect to end up between £900 and £2500 depending on how high a finished quality you want. A lot of the time/cost is the paint job and there are a lot of variables. Will your 50mm floating shelves have an mdf edge? are they going to sand all the cut mdf edges to 400 grit before painting? So many questions. Maybe my ballpark figure helps you but bear in mind I'm in the higher end of the market quality wise. I might say that the design you're considering has not been super popular with my clients in the last 10 years, although there's nothing wrong with it, floating shelves kind of got overdone. Johnstones acrylic will probably mark if you place heavy objects/metal objects and move them around. It's one of the big problems with standard acrylic paint. There are some formulations for shelves like Porslin from Ray Munn that have a much harder surface.