In a small bedroom the storage gain comes from three decisions: take the wardrobe to the ceiling, use the full width of the wall, and choose a door that does not swing into the room. Everything else is refinement. Those three together will usually double what a small bedroom can hold, without taking a single extra centimetre of floor.
The complication in an apartment is that the wall you want is rarely a clean rectangle. There is an air conditioner head, a bulkhead where the ducting runs, a window that starts lower than you remembered, or a door that opens the wrong way. This guide covers how to get the storage gain and how to design around the obstacles.
What makes an apartment bedroom hard to fit out?
Sydney apartment bedrooms tend to share a set of characteristics that work against storage.
The room is often sized to fit a bed and little else, with the second bedroom in a two bedroom apartment noticeably tighter than the first. Ceiling heights vary widely between buildings, and a set-down or bulkhead frequently runs along one wall carrying services. Windows sit where the facade dictates rather than where the room would prefer. The entry door swings into the room and eats a corner. And in a lot of newer buildings there is a split system head mounted high on exactly the wall that would otherwise be the wardrobe wall.
None of this makes a good wardrobe impossible. It makes a measured design necessary, because the standard rectangle does not fit.
Should the wardrobe take the whole wall?
In a small room, generally yes.
The instinct is to leave a gap, either because a full wall of joinery feels heavy or because the wardrobe seems like it will dominate. In practice the opposite happens. A wardrobe that runs wall to wall and floor to ceiling reads as part of the architecture. A wardrobe that stops short reads as a piece of furniture, and the leftover gap becomes a place where things accumulate.
There is a practical gain as well. The awkward end sections, the narrow strip next to a window reveal or beside a door, are usually where a small room’s remaining capacity lives. A narrow section is not wasted space. It is where the ironing board, the drying rack and the tall boots go.
The exception is a room where the wardrobe wall also carries the entry door. In that case the wardrobe stops where the door swing begins, unless the door is being rehung to open the other way, which is sometimes worth doing and is cheaper than most people assume.
Why does floor to ceiling matter more in a small room?
Because in a small room, height is the only dimension you have spare.
A wardrobe that stops below the ceiling gives up the volume above it, and that volume becomes a dust shelf occupied by suitcases in plastic bags. Continuing to the ceiling with a closed overhead compartment converts that into proper storage, and in an apartment with no garage, no shed and no linen press, that compartment often ends up holding the things that would otherwise have nowhere to go.
Apartment ceilings do complicate this. Where a bulkhead runs along the wardrobe wall, the wardrobe can be built to the underside of the bulkhead, or stepped so that part runs to the true ceiling and part stops at the bulkhead. Which of those is right depends on how deep the bulkhead is and where it sits.
Where a sprinkler head or a smoke alarm sits close to the wall, that also has to be worked into the design, and it is a compliance question as well as a design one, not something to work around informally.
Which door type suits a small bedroom?
Sliding doors are the common answer, because they move across the face of the wardrobe rather than swinging into the room. In a bedroom where the bed sits close to the wardrobe wall, that is often the difference between a wardrobe you can open and one you cannot.
The trade is access. With sliding doors you can only reach part of the wardrobe at a time, and drawers need to be positioned where a door can be moved clear of them.
Hinged doors remain viable in a small room in two situations. The first is where the wardrobe sits in a recess or on a wall that the bed does not face, so the clearance exists. The second is where the wardrobe is divided into narrow sections, because each door is only as wide as its section and the swing is correspondingly small.
Mirrored doors are worth considering in a small bedroom for a reason beyond the obvious. A full length mirror has to go somewhere, and a freestanding one takes floor space that a small room cannot spare. Putting the mirror on the wardrobe door removes that object from the room entirely.
How do you fit more into the same footprint?
Once the wardrobe is as tall and as wide as the room allows, the remaining gains are internal.
Double hang. Two rails stacked in a single section, one above the other, for shirts, blouses, jackets and folded trousers. This is the largest single capacity gain available, and most small bedroom wardrobes should have at least one double hang section.
Fewer long hang sections. Every long hang section has dead space beneath it. Count your full length garments. If the answer is a handful, one section is enough.
Shelf spacing set to the contents. Shelves spaced generously look tidy and store less. Set the spacing to the stack that is actually going on them.
Shoe storage under a short hang section. Uses space that would otherwise be empty.
The narrow end section. A section too narrow for hanging is ideal for vertical storage: the ironing board, the drying rack, a vacuum, tall boots.
Drawers low. Drawers above shoulder height cannot be seen into. In a tall wardrobe, keep drawers in the lower half and use shelves higher up.
Designing around what you cannot move
Every apartment bedroom has at least one of these. All of them are solvable, and all of them need to be identified at the measure rather than on installation day.
A split system head on the wardrobe wall. The usual approaches are to stop the wardrobe below it, to step the joinery around it, or to relocate the unit if the pipework allows. The one thing that does not work is enclosing it, because the unit needs airflow and access for servicing.
A bulkhead. Build to it, or step around it. Measure its depth as well as its height, because a shallow bulkhead may allow the wardrobe to continue behind it.
A window that starts low. Joinery can be built to the reveal, or a lower run of storage can pass beneath the sill if the sill is high enough. A window seat with drawers under it is a reasonable use of that wall in a room with nowhere else to put storage.
A door that swings into the corner. Rehanging the door to swing the other way, or replacing it with a door that opens outward into a hallway, releases a usable corner. Worth pricing before assuming it cannot be done. In an apartment, check whether the door is a fire door and whether it is common property, because both change what is permitted.
A power point or light switch on the wardrobe wall. Joinery can be built around it, or an electrician can relocate it before the wardrobe is manufactured. Relocating is usually the better outcome and it needs to be sequenced early.
A wall that is not square. Common in older converted buildings. This is normal joinery work and involves scribing the unit to the wall, but it does need to be known in advance.
How small is too small for a built-in wardrobe?
Smaller than most people assume, because the alternative in a very small room is worse.
A freestanding wardrobe needs its own footprint, its own clearance, and it never quite fits the wall it stands against, leaving gaps at the sides and above. A built-in unit uses the full available width and height and has no wasted perimeter. In a genuinely tight room, the built-in option often holds more than a freestanding one while occupying less floor.
Where a room really cannot take a standard depth wardrobe on the wall you wanted, there are two design responses. One is to run a shallower unit and turn the hanging so garments face sideways along the run rather than out into the room, which changes the layout but keeps the hanging usable. The other is to move the wardrobe to a different wall and rearrange the bed. Both are worth putting to a designer rather than deciding in advance that the room will not work.
Storage beyond the wardrobe
In a small apartment bedroom, the wardrobe is often not enough on its own, and the remaining storage has to come from somewhere.
Under the bed. A bed base with drawers, or a storage bed, uses volume that is otherwise dead. This is furniture rather than joinery, but it is worth planning alongside the wardrobe so the two do not duplicate.
Over the bed. Overhead cupboards above the bedhead, sometimes with a bridging unit connecting to a wardrobe on each side. This makes efficient use of a small room and needs to be designed carefully, because nobody wants to feel enclosed while lying down. Depth and height above the pillow are the decisions that determine whether it feels considered or oppressive.
A window seat. Where a sill is high enough, a bench with drawers or a lift-up lid beneath a window adds storage and a place to sit in a room with no space for a chair.
The bedhead itself. A joinery bedhead with shallow shelving or side cupboards replaces two bedside tables and generally holds more.
Each of these interacts with the wardrobe design, which is a reason to consider the whole room at the measure rather than treating the wardrobe as a standalone item.
Do colour and finish make a small room feel larger?
They change how the room reads, which is not nothing.
A wardrobe finished close to the wall colour recedes and the room reads as one volume. A wardrobe in a strongly contrasting colour becomes an object in the room, which can be the intent in a room with something to look at, and is usually not the intent in a small bedroom.
Large flat panels amplify whatever is on them. A strong woodgrain or a busy pattern across a full wall of sliding doors will dominate a small room in a way that the same finish on a sample board does not suggest. If you are choosing from samples, hold them at arm’s length and imagine the whole wall.
Handle choice matters more in a small room than a large one, because the wardrobe is closer to you. Recessed or integrated handles keep the surface flat, which both looks calmer and removes something to catch a sleeve on in a narrow walkway.
What about a studio, or a bedroom used for more than sleeping?
Where a room does two jobs, the wardrobe usually has to do more than store clothes.
Common combinations in Sydney apartments include a bedroom that also holds a desk, a second bedroom that doubles as a study or a nursery, and a studio where the sleeping area is part of the main room. In each of these, joinery that combines wardrobe storage with a work surface, shelving or a screen is doing more work than a wardrobe alone.
The design questions are the same as any wardrobe, with two additions. First, what needs to be visible during the day and hidden at night, or the reverse. Second, whether the joinery needs to define the space as well as store things, which changes how the unit is finished on its exposed ends.
Apartment specifics worth checking before you book
These are the things that catch people out, and none of them are difficult if they are dealt with early.
• Strata by-laws. Fixing joinery to walls is normal, but check your scheme’s by-laws on works, particularly for anything involving common property, fire rated walls, or penetrations.
• Owners corporation notification. Many schemes require notice before minor works. Check the requirement rather than assuming.
• Building access rules. Lift bookings, protective covers, permitted working hours and loading dock access are common in Sydney buildings, and they need to be arranged in advance.
• Whether the wardrobe wall is a party wall. This affects fixings.
• Parking and access for delivery. Narrow driveways and no loading zone are ordinary in inner Sydney, and it is better known beforehand.
• Noise restrictions. Most buildings restrict when noisy work can be done.
• Lift dimensions. Where the components are large, the lift is the constraint, and this is a genuine design input rather than a formality.
Raise all of this at the measure and quote. A designer who knows the building has restrictions can plan around them.
What to do before you book
• Measure the wall and the clearance in front of it.
• Photograph the wall including the ceiling, any bulkhead, the air conditioner, the window and the door swing.
• Note the ceiling height, and whether it changes across the room.
• Check your strata by-laws and building access rules.
• Sort your clothes so you know what needs to hang, what folds and what needs a shelf.
• Decide whether the room has a second job to do.
The next step
A small room rewards a design that is accurate to the centimetre, and that requires someone to be in the room with a tape measure. Impressive Wardrobes offers a free measure and quote across most Sydney metropolitan suburbs, where a designer measures the space, works around the obstacles it has, and produces a design that fits what you store.
Book your free measure and quote, or call (02) 9796 1022. The showroom at 54 Canterbury Rd, Bankstown is a useful place to see finishes and internal fit-outs at full scale.
