The same question comes up again and again at a consultation: would a fitted wardrobe running the length of the bedroom wall work better, or is it worth giving up part of the room, or a separate space, for a proper dressing room. The answer depends on the floor area, how many people share the wardrobe, and how much space you’re willing to give over to storage alone. Here’s how the two options differ, and which dimensions to check before you decide.
Fitted wardrobe: when it’s the better choice
A fitted wardrobe has fronts enclosing everything inside, so it takes up less space than a room set aside purely for storage. It’s a good fit for a smaller bedroom, a flat with no spare room to turn into a dressing area, or anywhere you’d rather your clothes simply disappeared behind a front, without the open look of rails on display. We design the inside just as carefully as we would for a dressing room, dividing it into rails, shelves and drawers matched to what you actually own. It also suits a child’s room that changes purpose over time, since a wardrobe front doesn’t set the character of a room the way a dedicated dressing room would. It tends to cost less to build too, since you’re not paying for extra elements enclosing an entire room, only a single wall of fronts.
Dressing room: when a separate space is worth it
A dressing room makes sense when you have a spare room, a deep recess or an attic space that’s awkward to furnish any other way, given the sloped ceiling. Its advantage is comfortable access to everything at once, room for a full-length mirror and sometimes a seat for getting dressed. A dressing room also works better for two people sharing the same space, since you can split it into zones rather than making do with one shared wardrobe. In a larger home, it tends to be more convenient too: clothes, suitcases and seasonal items all live in one place, away from the bedroom, so getting dressed in the morning doesn’t clash with someone still asleep next door. The room itself, even a small one, is floor area taken from a bedroom or another room, so the decision shapes the layout of the whole flat.
Dimensions that decide how comfortable it is
A hanging section is usually around 60 centimetres deep. At that depth, clothes hang at a right angle to the back wall, the doors close properly, and the hanger doesn’t stick out past the front. Shallower sections, for folded clothes or bedding, tend to run 40–45 centimetres.
The width of the walkway depends on the layout. In a single-sided dressing room, with units down one side only, you need at least 90–100 centimetres of clear space to stand facing the wardrobe and pull out a drawer comfortably. In a double-sided layout, with units on both sides of the walkway, that grows to at least 120 centimetres, and it gets genuinely comfortable from around 150 centimetres, once you want to open drawers on both sides at the same time without backing into the opposite wall.
We always check these figures on site, since comfort also depends on the ceiling height, where the door into the room sits, and whether the dressing room also holds a chest of drawers or a seat. Treat them as a tested minimum, a starting point for the conversation about your particular room.
How much space a dressing room actually needs
As a rough guide, a narrow, single-sided dressing room fits into 2.5–3 square metres, around 150 by 180 centimetres for example. A comfortable double-sided one usually needs 4 to 5 square metres, enough for two 60-centimetre-deep units and the walkway between them. Below those figures, a dressing room is still possible, but at the cost of either shallower units or comfort when two people are using it at once.
Sliding or hinged doors
Sliding doors need no clearance to open, so they suit a narrow gap or a wardrobe standing opposite the bed, where a hinged door swinging open would be in the way. The trade-off is access to only half the wardrobe’s width at a time, since the other panel always covers the neighbouring section. A sliding system runs on a track at the bottom, the top, or both, so if you’re planning a hard floor, laminate or engineered boards for example, it’s worth settling this before fitting, so the bottom track doesn’t clash with the skirting board.
Open a hinged door and you can reach everything behind it at once, which you’ll appreciate with deep shelves or drawers running right up to the side wall. They do need clear space in front of the wardrobe for the door to swing, roughly the width of the door itself, so in a very tight room they might not be an option at all.
Lighting and ventilation
In a wardrobe or dressing room, lighting makes it easier to find things at the back, especially in sections with no daylight reaching them. We most often fit an LED strip above the rail, or spotlights in the ceiling of a dressing room, switched on by a motion sensor by the door, so you’re not hunting for a switch with your arms full of clothes. In a larger dressing room, general ceiling lighting earns its place too, on top of the strip over the rail, particularly if the room also holds a mirror where you want even light with no shadows.
Ventilation matters mainly in wardrobes with solid, sealed fronts. Gaps in the plinth and above the doors let air circulate, which keeps moisture down inside the unit, especially important where shoes are stored and against external walls, which run cooler than the rest of the room.
A sloped attic ceiling
Fitting furniture against a slope calls for a different approach to measuring than a flat wall. Roof timbers rarely hold the same angle all the way along, so we check the pitch every dozen centimetres or so along the entire wall. The lower part of the slope usually takes drawers or low shelves, the taller part, closer to the ridge, a rail for clothes that hang full length. That way the fronts meet the ceiling without gaps, and there’s nothing left to hide behind a strip. Below around 50 centimetres of height, right at the lowest point of the slope, an open shelf with boxes often works better than a drawer, which is awkward to use in such a low space.
Fitted wardrobe or dressing room: a comparison
| Fitted wardrobe | Dressing room | |
|---|---|---|
| Space needed | Just the depth of the unit, around 60 cm | Units plus a walkway, 90–150 cm of room width, minimum |
| Access to contents | The front covers the inside, you see what you open | Everything visible as soon as you walk in |
| Best suited to | A smaller bedroom, a flat with no spare room | A spare room, a deep recess, or an attic under a slope |
| Number of users | Comfortable for one, tight for two at once | Handles two people using it at the same time well |
| Look in the room | A front in line with the wall, no view of the inside | A separate zone, sometimes with a mirror and a seat |
If you’re still not sure which option suits your home, book a consultation and we’ll check the room’s dimensions together. You’ll find the full scope of what we do with wardrobes and dressing rooms, including the materials on offer, in our wardrobes and dressing rooms pages.
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