Guide

One wide wardrobe, or several narrow ones side by side?

There is more than one way to fill a two metre wall with hanging space. You can build one wide wardrobe, or two, three or four narrower ones standing side by side. Both are sound; they cost different things. One uses noticeably less material, the other is easier to build alone and needs less height for the same clothes. This page gives you the numbers so you can choose on purpose rather than by default.

Every figure on this page is worked out for France in 18 mm boards. Your country may stock different thicknesses, and the builder recomputes all of it for the boards yours sells.

Why the choice exists at all

A hanging rod sags under the weight of clothes. A wooden rod 28 mm across holds about 61 cm before the sag becomes noticeable. Any wardrobe wider than that needs a centre support, and a centre support needs something solid to hang from: a reinforcement rail running under the top.

So a wide wardrobe carries two extra members that a narrow one does not: the rail, and the support hanging from it.

Split the same wall into several narrower wardrobes and each rod is short enough to need nothing. No rail, no centre support. That is the whole of the difference, and everything below follows from it.

The one nobody expects: narrow wardrobes need less height

The rod hangs under the rail, so the rail's height is taken out of your hanging space. Remove the rail and the rod moves up, which means the same clothes fit in a shorter wardrobe.

For a wall two metres wide, with a shelf above the rod:

That is 29 cm less in MDF and 16 cm less in plywood. At 240 cm wide the MDF gap reaches 30 cm.

If your ceiling is low, or the wardrobe has to sit under a sloping roof or a window, this is usually the number that decides.

What the wide one wins: material

One box shares its sides. Two boxes side by side have four sides and two backs where one box had two sides and one back. That is where the extra material goes.

For a wall two metres wide:

Roughly 65% more board and nearly three times the screws. The screws are easier ones, but there are a lot more of them.

What the narrow ones win: handling

The panels do not get shorter, but they get much narrower and much lighter.

A 200 cm panel is awkward to carry, awkward to mark and awkward to hold square while you screw it. A 60 cm one is not. If you are building alone, this is the difference between an afternoon and a fight.

Note what limits the wide box: at this width its heaviest piece is the back panel, and the back is thin sheet whatever you build the rest from. That is why the left-hand column reads the same in both materials. Split the wardrobe and the backs become small, at which point the heaviest piece is a side again and your choice of board starts to matter.

The longest single cut is the same either way, because a side panel is as long as the wardrobe is tall. What changes is everything else about handling it.

What the narrow ones cost you in hanging space

Every extra wardrobe brings two more side panels, and those panels stand where clothes used to hang.

On a two metre wall that is about 7% of your rod. It is not much, but it is real, and nobody mentions it until the clothes are up.

Choosing

Choose one wide wardrobe if the space is a fixed size you want filled exactly, if material cost matters more than build effort, or if you have someone to help you stand the carcass up.

Choose several narrow ones if your ceiling is low and you need the height back, if you are building alone, if the room or the doorway makes a two metre panel hard to handle, or if you might want to move or extend the set later.

Either way you can change your mind. Nothing about one choice locks out the other; they are simply two plans.

A note on what shop-bought wardrobes do

Flat-pack wardrobe systems solve this by never offering the wide version: their frames stop at about a metre, and a wider wardrobe is several frames bolted together. They also use a metal rod, which is considerably stiffer than a wooden one of the same size and spans further before it needs support.

Both are reasonable choices. Ours are different on purpose: a wooden rod is cut to length with the saw you already own, and a wardrobe built to your measurements fits the wall you actually have rather than the nearest standard size.

Read the rest of that story: why your plan has parts you would not find in a shop

In Kamba

When your wardrobe is wide enough for the split to be worth taking, the plan says so on the dimensions step, with the numbers for your own project. Below that width it stays quiet, because the trade is not worth making: at one metre you would spend about a third more board to gain seven centimetres of height.

See standard shelf dimensions

See which tools you need

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