Wardrobe internals by width: hanging, shelves and drawers that fit the recess

Start with the width, not the wish list

A built in wardrobe is a row of boxes, one per bay, each behind its own door. The door sets the bay. Our workshop keeps a door under 650 mm wide, because a wider glass or board door gets heavy on its hinges and swings too far into the room. So the recess width, less 80 mm of filler at each wall, divided by the number of bays, has to land under 650 mm.

That gives you a quick table. The clear width inside a bay is the module less the two 18 mm sides.

What hangs how long

The figures behind every wardrobe rail are old and have not changed, because people have not. A 1967 circular from a university extension service put the hanging height for street dresses and coats at 63 inches, which is 1600 mm, and for trousers, suits, blouses and skirts at 39 to 45 inches, or 990 to 1140 mm. Children's clothes at three to five years need 30 inches, 760 mm, and at five to twelve, 45 inches.

A closet maker's 2019 design guide gives lengths including the hanger: shirts 38 to 40 inches, or 965 to 1015 mm. Suits and jackets 39 to 42 inches, so up to about 1070 mm. Trousers hung from the cuff 46 to 52 inches, 1170 to 1320 mm, and folded over the hanger 28 to 32 inches, 710 to 810 mm. A long formal dress runs 72 to 78 inches, which is 1830 to 1980 mm. A kandura or an abaya belongs in that last row.

Source: Oregon State University Extension Service: Ideas for Better Clothes Closets, circular 691 (1967)

The rails our workshop builds to

Our tall boxes are 1940 mm high on a 100 mm plinth, and the top rail sits with its centre at 1972 mm above the floor, 50 mm under the box top so a hanger hook lifts off. From there the bay decides the drop.

Source: Organized Living: Complete guide to creating a great closet, bedroom storage 101 (2019)

How much rail does one person need?

The same 1967 circular says to allow at least four feet of rod space per person, which is 1220 mm, and four inches, 100 mm, for each coat. The closet maker's guide gives a width per garment on the rail: shirts half an inch to one inch, 13 to 25 mm. Suits and jackets 2 to 4 inches, 50 to 100 mm. Coats 2 to 6 inches, up to 150 mm. Dresses 1 to 3 inches, 25 to 75 mm. It also says to plan ahead by adding 10 to 15 percent to the storage you need now.

Count your hangers against those numbers and you get the metres of rail you need, then the bays. Two people with a hundred shirts between them fill about a metre of rail on shirts alone. That is two double bays before anyone's coats are in.

Source: Organized Living: Complete guide to creating a great closet, bedroom storage 101 (2019)

Shelves: how deep and how wide

Folded clothes are narrower than you think. The closet maker's guide puts T shirts, sweaters and jeans at 12 to 14 inches deep and 9 to 14 inches wide, so 300 to 360 mm by 230 to 360 mm. Laundered shirts need 16 inches of depth, about 400 mm. A pair of shoes takes 8 to 12 inches, 200 to 300 mm.

Our shelves are 500 mm deep against the back of a 598 mm box, because the front 80 mm belong to the hinges and the door. That takes a laundered shirt with room to spare, and a 524 mm clear bay holds two stacks of folded T shirts side by side. Shelves sit on 5 mm pins in two rows of holes every 32 mm, 117 and 497 mm from the front edge, so a shelf moves in a minute when the boots arrive.

On span, the North American panel association publishes maximum shelf spans for 19 mm particleboard and MDF at a sag limit of the span divided by 240. At its lightest listed load, about 1 kilopascal, the single span allowance runs from roughly 620 to 810 mm depending on grade. Clothes are light, so a wardrobe shelf up to 604 mm clear is well inside that. Books are another matter, which is why our wall units use 36 mm doubled shelves.

Source: Composite Panel Association: Particleboard and MDF for shelving, technical bulletin

Drawers: heights, widths and what the runners carry

Our drawer bay stacks three drawers from 121 mm above the floor, each behind a 236 mm front with a 200 mm box inside, then a shallow jewellery drawer behind a 100 mm front at 838 mm, a glass top at 968 mm and two pin shelves above. Each drawer runs on a pair of 450 mm full extension push to open runners, so you see the back of the drawer and nothing needs a handle.

Runner makers sell by load. One maker's box system carries 40 or 70 kg per drawer. Another's full extension runners come in three classes, 10, 40 and 70 kg, tested to the European runner standard at its third level. A drawer of folded jumpers weighs a few kilograms, so a 40 kg class is plenty and the heavier class is for a drawer of tools or tins.

Width follows the bay. In a 524 mm clear bay, an 18 mm packer on the hinge side keeps the drawers clear of the open door, then 13 mm a side for the runners, which leaves a drawer box 480 mm wide. The drawer front is 4 mm narrower than the opening, with 3 mm between fronts.

Sources: Blum: LEGRABOX box system, overview, Hettich: Actro YOU full extension runner, L (40 kg), 350 mm

Where things go: between knee and shoulder

The US accessibility standard sets the comfortable reach range for a person in a wheelchair at 380 to 1220 mm above the floor for an unobstructed reach, and lowers the high reach to 1120 mm when you lean over something deeper than 510 mm. Nobody designs a wardrobe to that code, but it is a good description of the band most hands use most days.

So the double bay's lower rail at 950 mm, the drawers up to about 1000 mm and the glass top at 968 mm all sit in that band. The top rail at 1972 mm is a stretch for many people. For a top rail you use daily, a pull down rail brings it to you: one maker's lift carries up to 10 kg and needs at least 1.6 kg on it to come down gently, in versions for bays 440 to 610 mm and 600 to 1000 mm wide. The top boxes above 2040 mm are for the step ladder and the once a year things.

Sources: U.S. Access Board: 2010 ADA Standards, section 308 reach ranges, Häfele UK: Häfele Dresscode wardrobe lift (catalogue page 2.25)

A worked example: 2400 mm wide, 2600 mm high

Run through our workshop's rules, a recess 2400 mm wide, 2600 mm high and 600 mm deep becomes four bays of 560 mm: a long bay with shoes, two double bays and a drawer bay. The top boxes come out 550 mm high. The doors are 556 by 2486 mm, about 26 kg each in framed glass, on seven hinges.

The parts list runs to 85 pieces of 18 mm board, 27.9 square metres, cut from six boards of 2800 by 2070 mm with a seventh ordered as the spare from the same batch. The hardware is 28 soft close hinges, five oval rails, four runner pairs, a glass top, 20 shelf pins, eight angle brackets, four LED strips with door switches and about 64 metres of 1 mm edge banding. Every one of those is a line on the quote, so you see where a bay of drawers costs more than a bay of rail.

How we get there with you

Send a photo from the doorway and the width, height and depth of the recess, roughly. We reply with the bay count and an estimate. At the free visit we measure the recess at three heights and both diagonals, take the smallest of each, and draw every box with its own code. What moves the total is in how much a built in wardrobe costs. When you are ready, start on our page for fitted wardrobes.