Installation Guide

How To Measure A Room For A Fitted Wardrobe

The measurements a cut list actually needs, why three width readings matter, and the site conditions that ruin an otherwise correct order.

Why A Single Width Is Not Enough

Walls are not parallel. In almost any building, the distance between two walls at floor level differs from the distance at ceiling level, often by 10 to 20 mm and sometimes by considerably more. Take the width at floor level, at roughly waist height and just below the ceiling, and work from the smallest of the three. A wardrobe cut to the largest reading will not go into the opening at all.

Height And The Floor

Measure height at both ends of the run and in the middle. Floors slope, and an old floor can lose 15 mm across two metres. The wardrobe has to be cut to the shortest height so it can stand upright, with the difference taken up in a scribe or a plinth. This is also the moment to note the skirting board - either the wardrobe is scribed around it or the skirting is cut away behind the unit, and that decision changes the depth.

Depth And Door Swing

Standard hanging depth is driven by shoulder width on a hanger, not by taste, so an unusually shallow wardrobe makes clothes crush against the door. Then check what the doors will hit. A hinged door needs clear swing space and will conflict with a bed, a radiator or a room door. A sliding door needs none of that but loses interior depth to the track, and it means only half the wardrobe is open at any time.

Obstructions To Record

Write down everything on and near the wall: electrical sockets and switches, a radiator and its pipework, a window reveal, a door architrave, a sloped ceiling, a chimney breast, a ceiling light position, and any air conditioning unit. Each of these changes either the carcase or the layout, and all of them are cheap to design around and expensive to discover during installation.

Internal Layout

Decide the split before the carcase is cut, because internal divisions are structural. Long hanging needs roughly 1500 mm of clear height, short hanging roughly 1000 mm, which is why a double-hang section stacks two rails in the height of one. Shelves and internal drawers are then fitted into the remaining bays. If internal drawers are wanted, the runner length is chosen from the carcase depth at this stage rather than afterwards.

What To Send With An Enquiry

A sketch of the wall with the three widths, the three heights, the intended depth, and every obstruction marked with its distance from the nearest corner. A photograph of the wall taken square on, plus one from each side. Whether doors are to be sliding or hinged. And the panel material you want for the carcase and for the fronts. That is enough to produce a drawing without a second round of questions.

Before You Confirm

Check the delivery route, not just the room. A knockdown wardrobe ships as flat panels, so the question is whether the longest panel will pass the stairwell turn, the lift and the door. This is exactly where assembled furniture fails and flat packs do not, but a two and a half metre full-height side panel still has to get up the stairs, and it is worth measuring the tightest turn before confirming the height.