Planning a walk-in wardrobe: sizes, layouts and lighting

A single-sided walk-in needs about 1,600 millimetres of width: 600 for the storage and 1,000 for circulation. A double-sided run needs around 2,200 millimetres, because you need room to open a drawer on one side while standing clear of the other.

Below those figures you do not have a walk-in, you have a corridor with clothes in it, and a well-designed fitted wardrobe in the bedroom will store more. It is worth being honest about this early rather than losing a metre of bedroom for a room you resent.

Single wall suits a narrow box room or a widened alcove. Galley, with storage on two facing walls, is the most efficient use of a rectangular space. U-shaped works where the room is closed at the far end and gives you a natural place for full-length hanging or a dressing mirror.

L-shaped is the usual answer in an odd-shaped loft or a room with a window. Whichever layout, keep the door swinging outward or fit a sliding or pocket door, so you do not lose a metre of storage to a door arc.

Measure your current hanging in metres and add twenty per cent. Most people underestimate. Then split it: long hanging at 1,500 millimetres clear for coats and dresses, double-banked short hanging at around 1,000 millimetres each for shirts and jackets.

Everything above 2,000 millimetres should be treated as top-box storage for luggage and out-of-season clothing, reached with a step or a pull-down rail. Everything below 400 millimetres is best used for shoes and drawers rather than hanging.

Open shelving and rails are the cheapest, quickest to use and the most demanding to keep tidy. Glazed doors keep dust off while letting you see what you own, and look considered when the glass is fluted, reeded or bronzed. Closed doors give the calmest room and the best protection for delicate fabrics.

A common approach mixes all three: open hanging on the long wall, glazed fronts for accessories and knitwear, closed doors over the untidy bay with the laundry basket and suitcases.

Colour rendering matters here more than anywhere else in the house, because you are choosing what to wear. Use warm-white LED with a high colour-rendering index, light the vertical face of the clothes rather than the floor, and add a switched full-length mirror light if you dress in there.

Ventilation is the detail people skip. A windowless walk-in in a warm flat gets stale and, in the worst cases, damp. A small trickle vent, a louvred panel in the door, or an extract fan on a timer keeps the air moving.

A drawer-top valet space or a small island in a larger room gives you somewhere to lay out an outfit and hides jewellery drawers. A bench or upholstered stool makes putting shoes on civilised. A hook rail inside the door takes tomorrow's clothes.

Line jewellery and watch drawers in felt or leather, add dividers for belts and ties, and specify soft-close on everything. These small items are a modest part of the budget and are what people notice every morning.

Turning a box room into a dressing room is one of the best uses of space in a London house, but check two things first: whether you are reducing the property's official bedroom count, and whether the room has the only window serving that part of the plan.

Where the conversion opens directly off the main bedroom, a pocket or sliding door avoids losing storage to a swing. Keep flooring continuous between the two rooms so the space reads as one suite.

As an indicative guide, a bespoke walk-in in London typically runs £8,000-£25,000 depending on size, whether fronts are open or doored, and the level of internal fitting and lighting. Larger dressing rooms with islands, glazed cabinetry and specialist finishes go beyond that.

Allow two to three weeks for design and survey, six to eight weeks in the workshop and three to five days on site, plus electrical first fix booked before installation.