Fitted wardrobe options: doors, interiors and costs compared

Hinged doors give you the whole opening at once, take standard adjustable hinges, and are easy to repair. They need swing space, typically 600 millimetres in front, which rules them out in narrow bedrooms where the bed sits close.

Sliding doors need no swing space and suit long runs, but you only ever see half the wardrobe at a time and the track takes 90 to 120 millimetres out of the usable depth. Open or curtained runs are the cheapest and work well in a dressing area, though everything inside is on permanent display and collects dust.

A wardrobe with a front-to-back hanging rail needs 600 millimetres internal depth to hang a jacket without crushing the shoulders; 650 is more comfortable once you add a door. Anything shallower and clothes press against the door, which creases them and eventually marks the paint.

Where depth is genuinely tight, use a side-facing pull-out rail. These work in 350 to 400 millimetres, hold less per metre and cost more per garment stored, but they turn an unusable wall into a wardrobe rather than losing the room.

Count what you own before designing. Long hanging (coats and dresses) needs roughly 1,500 millimetres of height; short hanging (shirts, jackets, folded trousers) needs about 1,000, which means you can double-bank two rails in a full-height wardrobe and roughly double capacity.

Add drawers for the things that do not hang - knitwear, underwear, gym kit - because a shelf full of stacked jumpers turns into an avalanche. Shoes want shallow adjustable shelves, ideally angled or spaced at 180 to 200 millimetres. Leave one flexible bay you can re-organise later.

Painted shaker and flat-panel doors are the most common choice in London homes because they sit comfortably in both period and modern rooms and can be repainted later. Veneered doors in oak, walnut or ash bring warmth and hide fingerprints, and are worth specifying with matched grain across a run.

Mirrored and fluted glass doors bounce light around small rooms; specify safety-backed mirror and expect additional weight, which means heavier hinges or a stronger track. Handleless push-catch fronts look clean but need tighter tolerances and can be fiddly with full hands.

Interior lighting transforms how a wardrobe is used. Warm LED strips under each shelf front or along the top rail, switched by door contacts or PIR, mean you can see the back of a dark bay. Keep drivers accessible, ideally in a top box or plinth with a removable cover.

A socket inside the wardrobe is quietly useful for a steamer, a shaver, a robot vacuum or a charging shelf. It has to be planned at first fix, so decide early.

As a broad London guide, a painted fitted wardrobe with a simple interior typically runs £1,200-£2,000 per linear metre. Add better internals, integrated lighting and veneered or glazed doors and £2,000-£3,500 per metre is realistic. Sliding systems usually add ten to twenty per cent because the track hardware is expensive.

These figures include design, survey, workshop making, spraying and installation, and exclude building works, flooring and electrical first fix. Every room is priced individually after a survey.

Aligning the wardrobe with the room's existing lines is what stops it looking bolted on. Take the top rail to the picture rail or the cornice, continue the skirting profile across the plinth, and match the door mouldings to the room's internal doors.

Where a chimney breast interrupts a wall, treat the two alcoves as a pair and either build both or build one and balance it deliberately. A single tall wardrobe on one side of a breast rarely looks right.

Too little hanging and too many shelves; shelves that are too deep so things get lost at the back; no lighting; sliding doors in a room that would happily take hinged; and full-height doors so wide they hit the bed. All of these are decided on the drawing, not on site.

The other regret is buying to the cheapest quote and finding the carcasses are thin, the runners unrated and the paint brush-applied. A wardrobe is opened several times a day for twenty years, and it shows.