Depth is the one measurement people tend to guess, and it is the one that decides whether a wardrobe actually works. Too shallow and your shirts rub against the doors every time you close them. Too deep and you lose floor you did not need to give up, and the back of every shelf turns into a place where jumpers go to be forgotten.
Because we make our wardrobes by hand to the room rather than choosing from a list of carcass sizes, we get to set the depth exactly. That freedom is useful, but only if the number is chosen for a reason, so here is how we think about it when we are stood in your bedroom with a tape.
Start with the hanger, not the wall
An ordinary adult coat hanger is a little under half a metre across. Clothes on it spread a bit wider, especially coats and anything with padded shoulders. So the inside of a hanging section wants to be comfortably deeper than the hanger, with a small allowance at the back so garments are not pressed against the wall and a small allowance at the front so the doors clear the sleeves.
That is why most people land on an overall depth of around 600mm for a full hanging wardrobe with hinged doors. It is not a magic figure, it is simply what falls out of the hanger plus a little breathing room plus the thickness of the carcass and door.
If you mainly hang long dresses or winter coats, lean towards the deeper end. If the wardrobe is mostly shirts and trousers for one person, you have a little more room to play with.
How the doors change the number
Hinged doors sit flat on the front and take very little depth themselves, which is why they suit most bedrooms we work in. Sliding doors are different. They run on a track, and two or three doors overlapping need their own zone of depth in front of the hanging space, so a sliding wardrobe usually has to come further into the room to give the same usable inside.
We cover the wider choice in our guide to sliding and hinged doors, but on depth alone the rule is simple: if the room is tight, hinged doors give you more hanging space for the same footprint.
When the room will not give you 600mm
Plenty of bedrooms, especially in older houses and newer compact builds, cannot spare the full depth without the bed or the door swing becoming awkward. That does not mean you cannot have a fitted wardrobe. It means the inside has to be planned differently.
The most useful trick is front facing hanging, where a pull out rail runs from front to back so hangers sit sideways on. It takes a shallower cupboard and still stores clothes properly, though you see one garment at a time rather than the whole row.
- Shallow sections for shelves and folded clothes, with full depth kept only where you need to hang.
- Pull out rails in shallow units so hangers face the front.
- Mixing depths along one run, so the wardrobe steps back where a door or window needs room.
- Using alcoves beside a chimney breast, which often give natural depth without eating into the room.
Depth in alcoves, lofts and awkward walls
Alcoves are rarely the same depth top to bottom or side to side. Old chimney breasts lean, plaster bellies out and skirting boards stick out further than you would think. Because we scribe every carcass to the wall it sits against, the front can line up perfectly while the back follows whatever the wall is doing.
Under a sloping loft ceiling, depth and height work together. A deep unit under a low eave is hard to reach into, so we often keep the low end shallow for shoes and folded things and put the hanging where the ceiling gives full height.
Deeper is not always better
It is tempting to go deep just in case. The trouble is that shelves deeper than your arm comfortably reaches become storage you forget about, and every extra few centimetres comes straight out of the walking space in front. In a smaller room that can be the difference between a bedroom that feels calm and one that feels crowded.
Our aim is to give each section the depth its job needs and no more, which is one of the real advantages of having the wardrobe made rather than bought in fixed sizes.
Measuring for depth yourself
If you want a rough idea before we visit, measure from the wall to the furthest point you would be happy for the doors to reach, then check that the bedroom door, any windows and the path to the bed still work. Measure at floor level, at waist height and near the ceiling, because walls are seldom straight.
When we come out we measure properly and draw it up, so your rough figures are a starting point rather than a commitment.
Common questions
- How deep should fitted wardrobes be?
- For full hanging with hinged doors, most people end up around 600mm overall. That comes from the width of a hanger plus a little space front and back plus the carcass and door.
- Can built in wardrobes be shallower than 600mm?
- Yes. Shallow sections work well for shelves and folded clothes, and pull out rails let you hang clothes front to back in a shallower cupboard.
- Do sliding door wardrobes need more depth?
- Usually, yes. The doors run on a track and overlap, so they need their own depth in front of the hanging space, which pushes the whole wardrobe further into the room.
- What happens if my walls are not straight?
- We scribe each carcass to the wall so the front lines up neatly while the back follows the wall. That is normal in older houses and not a problem for made to measure work.
- Can one wardrobe have different depths?
- It can. We often step a run back where a door or window needs clearance and keep full depth only for the hanging sections.
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