Materials & comparisons
Fitted or freestanding wardrobes: which suits your room?
The right answer depends on the shape of the room far more than on taste.
In a square room with a flat wall and standard ceiling height, freestanding furniture does a decent job for less money and you can take it with you. In almost any other room, meaning alcoves, chimney breasts, sloping ceilings, bay windows or awkward door swings, fitted wardrobes win, because they use the volume a freestanding unit has to leave empty. That gap above a wardrobe and behind it is often a third of the storage you paid the room to give you.
Side by side
The trade offs, plainly.
- Storage per square metre: fitted wins clearly, especially full height.
- Cost: freestanding is cheaper up front.
- Flexibility: freestanding can move house or move rooms, fitted cannot.
- Awkward rooms: fitted handles slopes, alcoves and chimney breasts, freestanding does not.
- Dust and cleaning: fitted seals to the ceiling so there is no ledge on top.
- Appearance: fitted reads as part of the room, freestanding reads as furniture.
Rooms where fitted is the only sensible answer
Loft conversions and rooms with sloping ceilings, where a standard wardrobe simply will not stand up. Alcoves either side of a chimney breast, where a fitted run turns dead space into hanging space. Small bedrooms where every centimetre of depth counts and a freestanding unit would block the door.
When freestanding is the better decision
Rented homes, rooms you expect to repurpose within a couple of years, and situations where the budget is better spent elsewhere in the house. There is no point building in furniture for a room whose use is about to change.
The middle route
A fitted run of carcasses with simple hinged doors, finished in paint on site, costs considerably less than sliding doors with a full internal system, and still gains you the full height and the scribed fit. It is the option most people end up choosing once they see the difference in price.
Questions we're asked about this
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