A standard wardrobe is about 58cm to 60cm deep, which is the minimum needed for clothes to hang square on a front to back rail without touching the doors. Slimline models run around 35cm to 45cm and use a side to side rail instead, while sliding door wardrobes are usually 65cm to 70cm deep because the two door panels sit in separate tracks and take up depth of their own.
Depth is the dimension people check last and regret most. Width and height are obvious in a room, but depth decides whether the wardrobe actually works: too shallow and shoulders press against the door, too deep and you lose floor area you needed for walking past the bed.
The figure comes from the width of a hanger and the shoulders of a garment. A typical adult coat hanger is 42cm to 45cm across, and a jacket on it needs a little clearance either side.
Add the thickness of the carcass sides, the space for the rail bracket and enough clearance so garments do not rub on the inside of the door, and you arrive at roughly 58cm to 60cm externally. That gives around 52cm to 55cm of internal depth, which is comfortable for hanging.
Go below about 55cm external and garments start to catch. You will notice it as doors that will not close cleanly, creased shoulders and coats that feel jammed.
Where floor space is genuinely tight, a slimline wardrobe of 35cm to 45cm deep can still work well, but the rail has to run parallel to the doors rather than across the depth. Garments then hang side on, facing the door.
This works better than it sounds. You see the front of each item as you slide along the rail, which is easy to browse. The compromise is capacity: a side hanging rail holds fewer garments per metre of wardrobe width than a front to back rail does, because each item takes its own slice of rail length.
Slimline units suit box rooms, hallways, spare bedrooms and homes where the walkway matters more than the volume. They also work as a second wardrobe alongside a standard depth one, holding shirts and jackets while the deeper unit takes coats and bulk.
Sliding doors overlap, which means one panel must pass in front of the other. Two tracks plus the thickness of both panels typically adds 8cm to 12cm compared with a hinged design.
That is why sliding wardrobes usually measure 65cm to 70cm deep. The internal usable depth ends up similar to a 60cm hinged unit, so you are not gaining storage: you are trading external depth for the removal of the door swing.
It is still often the right trade. A hinged door needs 50cm to 60cm of clear space in front of it to open fully. If your bed sits close to the wardrobe wall, sliding doors solve a problem that no amount of depth adjustment can.
Our modern sliding wardrobes UK sale range lists depths on each product, which is worth checking against your floor plan before committing.
Made to measure joinery can be built to any depth, and this is where fitted work earns its keep. In a room where 60cm would block a door or radiator, a 48cm unit with side hanging may be the only viable answer.
Fitted wardrobes also let you vary depth along a run: a deeper section for coats beside a shallower section for shelves. Shelves only need 30cm to 35cm to hold folded clothes comfortably, so a shelf only section can be much shallower than a hanging section.
If you are building or specifying, note that anything under 55cm deep needs to be designed for side hanging from the start. Retrofitting a side rail into a unit built for front to back hanging rarely looks right.
Mark the wardrobe depth on the floor with masking tape before you buy. Stand at the tape, open an imaginary door and walk the route you take to the bed and the bedroom door. This ten minute exercise catches almost every depth mistake.
Check three things in particular. First, the door swing of the bedroom door itself, which often clips the corner of a wardrobe wall. Second, the position of any radiator, since a wardrobe should not sit hard over one. Third, the gap left beside the bed: below about 60cm of walkway a room starts to feel awkward.
Also measure the carry route. A 60cm deep wardrobe delivered assembled needs to turn corners on stairs and landings, and a tight Victorian staircase is a common obstacle. Flat packed units avoid this entirely.
Be led by your longest and bulkiest garments. If you own winter coats, sheepskin or heavy tailoring, 60cm is worth protecting. If your wardrobe is mainly shirts, blouses, light dresses and folded items, a shallower unit will serve you well.
Folded storage barely needs depth at all. Moving folded clothes into a modern chest of drawers UK sale often means you can choose a slimmer wardrobe, since the deep unit is then only holding hanging garments. A modern bedside cabinets UK sale pairing handles the small items that otherwise end up on wardrobe shelves.
For quick reference when planning: standard hinged wardrobe 58cm to 60cm, slimline with side hanging 35cm to 45cm, sliding door 65cm to 70cm, shelf only section 30cm to 35cm, hanging rail clearance from the back wall around 30cm, and clear walkway in front of a hinged door 50cm to 60cm.
Those figures cover the overwhelming majority of UK bedrooms. Where your room does not fit them, that is usually a signal to consider sliding doors, a slimmer side hanging unit or splitting storage across two smaller pieces rather than forcing one large one in.
Every product across our modern wardrobes UK sale range lists its depth alongside width and height, and the broader modern bedroom furniture UK sale collection lets you plan the whole room to scale. At Furniture in Fashion we would always suggest taping the footprint on the floor first: it costs nothing and it settles the question in minutes.
Depth on paper is only half the story, because a hinged door needs clearance to swing. A 60cm deep wardrobe with a 50cm wide door needs roughly 50cm of clear floor in front of it before the door opens fully, and that clearance has to coexist with the bed, the radiator and the route to the window.
This is where a slightly shallower unit can be the better choice in a narrow room. Losing a few centimetres of internal depth is a smaller compromise than a door that only opens two thirds of the way, because a door you cannot open fully makes the whole interior harder to use.
Sliding doors remove the swing entirely, which is why they suit tight rooms, but they claim internal depth instead. Bifold doors sit between the two and need less clearance than a full hinged panel while keeping most of the interior accessible at once.
Alcoves, chimney breasts and sloping ceilings rarely offer a clean 60cm. In a chimney alcove you often have around 45cm to 55cm, which is enough for side hanging or shelving but not for a standard front facing rail. A fitted approach lets you use whatever the alcove gives you rather than leaving a gap behind a standard carcass.
Under a sloping ceiling, depth and height interact: the deeper you build, the lower the ceiling is at the back. In this situation, a shallower run with shelving at the low end and full hanging where the ceiling is highest uses the volume far more efficiently.
Where a room simply cannot take a deep unit, splitting storage across two shallower pieces in different places often holds more than one deep wardrobe squeezed into the only wall that will take it.
Around 58cm to 60cm. That allows a 42cm to 45cm hanger to sit square on a front to back rail with clearance for the garment and the door.
Yes, but the rail must run parallel to the doors so clothes hang side on. Slimline wardrobes of 35cm to 45cm work this way.
Two overlapping door panels and their tracks add roughly 8cm to 12cm. The usable interior ends up similar to a 60cm hinged unit.
Allow 50cm to 60cm clear for a hinged door to open fully. Sliding doors need no swing clearance, which is why they suit narrow rooms.
Around 30cm to 35cm holds folded clothing comfortably. Shelf only sections can therefore be much shallower than hanging sections.
Making your own wardrobe can take three quite different forms, and choosing the right one…
Sliding door wardrobe prices in the UK fall into three brackets: ready made freestanding units…
Wardrobe smells come from three things acting together: moisture, still air and worn clothing in…
Bar stools can often be shortened, but only some types, and telling them apart is…
Cut down your wardrobe by emptying it completely, sorting by category rather than by shelf,…
Building a built in wardrobe follows a fixed order, and the two stages that decide…
This website uses cookies.