The rail length
Push a working rail together and measure what it occupies, or count the hangers. Short pieces are cheaper in space because they can sit on two rails. Long pieces spend the full height and should be counted separately.
Free planning tool · no email required
How much wardrobe
space do you need?
Start with the clothes, not the doors. Count what hangs short, what hangs long, what folds and what lives at floor level. This calculator turns that list into a practical first wardrobe layout, in millimetres.
Your wall and wardrobe
A practical starting plan
Fits with useful room to spare
Your wardrobe list asks for about 2.30 m of fitted wall. You have 2.60 m.
Double hang1000 mm1.95 m rail
Long hang700 mm0.70 m rail
Fold + shoes600 mm6 stacks · 12 pairs
- Short-hanging rail
- 1.95 m
- Long-hanging rail
- 0.70 m
- Wall difference
- +300 mm
Planning assumptions: 40 mm per short-hanging piece, 60 mm per coat or dress, then 15% breathing and growth room. Short hanging is doubled only above 2,050 mm. Carcass, doors, hinges, scribes and real garment lengths still need a design survey.
Read the result properly
A wardrobe is three
different measurements.
Width tells you how many things fit. Height decides whether a rail can be doubled. Depth decides whether the hangers face you or turn sideways. Treating all three as one “wardrobe size” is where bad layouts begin.
The clear depth
Adult hangers are wider than the jacket you see from the front. A conventional rail wants about 550 mm inside so sleeves do not brush the doors. At 450 mm, turn the rail and pull it towards you instead.
The opening space
A hinged door wants roughly its own width of clear floor. A drawer wants its depth again in front. Sliding doors save the swing but hide one section behind another. The room around the wardrobe is part of the design.
The arithmetic
What the calculator
actually does.
01
Allows room between clothes
A rail packed to its mathematical maximum is not a useful rail. We use 40 mm per short-hanging item and 60 mm per bulky long item, then add 15% for fingers, fabric and the clothes you have not bought yet.
02
Doubles only what can be doubled
Shirts, blouses and trousers can use upper and lower rails when the room height allows. Coats and dresses cannot. The calculator keeps long hanging full height instead of hiding it in an optimistic total.
03
Reserves a real storage bay
Folded stacks and shoes need a section of their own. The result reserves 600 or 900 mm instead of pretending every jumper will fit on the top shelf above a rail.
04
Stops before pretending to design
Door widths, drawer runners, panel thickness, sockets, slopes and the scribe to an uneven wall belong in a measured drawing. The tool gives you a better first brief, not a false final plan.
The fastest accurate method
Measure the wardrobe
you use now.
Counts are useful when you are starting from nothing. If you already have a wardrobe, the better method takes ten minutes: push the short clothes together, measure the rail they occupy, then do the same for coats and dresses. Count the folded stacks and shoe pairs separately. Add the 15% only after the measuring.
That list is more valuable to a designer than a Pinterest board. It tells us where double hanging earns its keep, how much uninterrupted long hanging survives, and whether the wall wants a drawer tower or open shelves. It also exposes the common mistake: most people ask for too much long hanging and too few drawers because the empty showroom wardrobe makes a single rail look generous.
Photograph the existing interior once it is measured. The image records what the numbers cannot: handbags sitting on the floor, knitwear that topples, the suitcase that only fits diagonally. Those are design requirements, not clutter to apologise for.
Questions people ask
The useful
short answers.
How much wardrobe space does one person need?
There is no honest one-size number. Count the clothes that need hanging, separate short pieces from long, then allow breathing and growth room. The calculator does that arithmetic. As a rough check, one adult often lands around 900 to 1,200 mm of effective rail, but a tailoring-heavy wardrobe can need much more.
How many clothes fit on one metre of wardrobe rail?
For planning, this tool allows about 40 mm for a shirt or light jacket and 60 mm for a coat or dress, then adds 15% so the rail is usable rather than packed solid. That means roughly 21 short pieces or 14 bulky long pieces per metre after the allowance.
What depth should a fitted wardrobe be?
A conventional front-facing hanging rail wants about 550 mm of clear internal depth; a finished fitted run commonly starts around 600 mm overall. Shallower wardrobes can work, but the design usually changes to pull-out side-on rails, shelves or drawers.
Is double hanging worth it?
Yes when most of what you hang is shirt or jacket length. Two rails use the same wall width twice. It is the highest-value move in many wardrobes, but it should not steal the uninterrupted height needed by dresses and coats.
Is this a manufacturing drawing?
No. It is a storage brief: useful before a showroom visit or design survey. Final dimensions depend on the real garments, doors, hinges, carcass thickness, skirting, sockets, uneven walls and how the room is used.
A plan built around what you own
Bring us the count.
We will bring the drawing.
We measure the room, draw the interior around your list and show it back to you as a photo-real render before anything is cut.
Start your roomSee how our fitted wardrobes are made