In short
- Count your garments by type before anything is designed. It takes twenty minutes.
- Long-hang is usually over-allocated; most wardrobes need far less than they get.
- Sliding and bi-fold doors block part of the opening permanently.
- Wire shelving removal damages drywall — budget for the patching.
The standard closet is one shelf and one rail at one height, and it wastes roughly a third of its volume. A custom closet recovers that — but only if it is designed around what you actually own rather than around a generic assumption.
The twenty-minute inventory
This is the single most useful thing you can do before a closet consultation. Rough counts are fine; nobody needs an exact number.
Count these
- Long-hanging items: coats, dresses, robes — measure the longest one
- Short-hanging items: shirts, blouses, jackets, folded trousers on hangers
- Items you fold rather than hang, and roughly how many stacks that is
- Pairs of shoes, split into those you want visible and those in boxes
- Bags, hats and accessories that need a home
- Anything bulky that lives in the closet: luggage, a vacuum, seasonal bedding
- Whether two people share the closet, and roughly what proportion each needs
Where the capacity actually comes from
Almost all of it comes from double-hanging. A single rail at 1,700 millimetres leaves nearly a metre of unused space below every shirt. Splitting part of the width into two rails at roughly 1,050 millimetres each recovers most of it immediately, and it is the change that produces the visible difference in a reach-in closet.
| Zone | Typical clear height | What it holds |
|---|---|---|
| Long hang | 1,600–1,750 mm | Coats, dresses, robes |
| Double hang, upper | 1,000–1,100 mm | Shirts, blouses, jackets |
| Double hang, lower | 1,000–1,100 mm | Trousers folded on hangers, skirts |
| Drawer bank | 900–1,200 mm total | Folded items, accessories, underwear |
| Shoe shelving | 160–200 mm per shelf | Angled shelves show more; flat holds boots |
| High shelf | Above 1,900 mm | Seasonal and occasional storage only |
Three things that catch people out
- The doors
- A sliding door means one third of the closet is never accessible at the same time as the rest. Do not put drawers behind the permanently overlapped section. Bi-folds block the opening at the hinge side. Hinged doors give full access and need room to swing.
- Circulation in a walk-in
- You need enough clear floor to open a drawer and stand in front of it. In a narrow walk-in with hanging opposite a drawer bank, this is the dimension that decides whether the layout works — and it is checked at drawing stage, not on installation day.
- Wire shelving removal
- The clips tear the drywall on the way out. Patching and painting is a normal part of the job, but it should be in the scope from the start rather than appearing as a surprise.
Craft Mill Works
Design and project coordination
Written and reviewed by the Craft Mill Works design team, based on the cabinetry and millwork projects we coordinate across North York and the Greater Toronto Area. [Add a named author and a short professional biography before launch — see README § Adding articles.]
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