Wardrobe and closet planner

Wardrobe and closet planner#

Enter the run available and what has to hang in it. The calculator allocates long hang, double hang, shelving and drawers, and reports the capacity in garments.

Inches Centimetres

Width of the run in

Ceiling height in

Share that needs long hang, per cent

Depth available21 in (533 mm), tight24 in (610 mm), standard28 in (711 mm), generous14 in (356 mm), shallow or sliding

Enter your measurements above.

Capacity assumes 1 in (25 mm) per garment on the rail for shirts and 1.5 in (38 mm) for coats and jackets, which is the density at which a rail is still usable rather than full.

Nothing you type leaves your browser: the maths runs on this page, and no values are stored or sent anywhere.

What the planner allocates#

Four inputs: the width of the run, the ceiling height, the share of the width that has to take long hang, and the internal depth. From those it splits the run into a long-hang zone and a double-hang zone, sets a rail height for each from the ceiling, totals the rail, converts the rail to garments, and then reports the shelf, drawer and shoe dimensions that follow. The maths runs in your browser on this page, and nothing you type is sent anywhere or stored.

The one thing worth understanding before you use it is why the split matters at all. A foot of double hang gives two feet of rail. A foot of long hang gives one. Every decision in a wardrobe is a trade between those two, and the share you set is the trade. The reasoning behind each zone is set out in wardrobe internal dimensions and divisions.

The arithmetic, worked once by hand#

Take a 96 in (244 cm) run under a 96 in (244 cm) ceiling, 30 per cent long hang, 24 in (610 mm) deep.

1. Long hang width: 96 x 0.30 = 29 in (74 cm).
2. Double hang width: the remainder, 67 in (170 cm).
3. Top rail: the ceiling less 16 in, capped at 80 in, so 80 in (203 cm).
4. Lower rail: half the top rail less 2 in, so 38 in (97 cm).
5. Long hang rail: the ceiling less 12 in, capped at 66 in, so 66 in (168 cm).
6. Total rail: 29 + (67 x 2) = 163 in (414 cm).
7. Capacity: 29 divided by 1.5 for coats, plus 134 divided by 1 for shirts, is 19 + 134 = 154 garments.
8. Hanging without crushing: about 70 per cent of that, so 108 garments.
9. Shelves above the top rail: one at 82 in (208 cm), a second at 94 in (239 cm).

That is the whole calculation. The densities behind step seven are the ones at which a rail stays usable rather than full, and they are the same figures used in hanging rod heights, lengths and capacity.

Why the rail heights are tied to the ceiling#

Both rails are derived from the ceiling rather than fixed, because the useful drop is what is left below them. The top rail sits 16 in (41 cm) down from the ceiling: 2 in for the rail and its supports, and about 14 in for a shelf and the fingers that reach onto it. It is capped at 80 in (203 cm) because nothing above that can be reached without a stretch by a person of average height, a limit worked through in reach zones and useful storage heights.

The long-hang rail is capped at 66 in (168 cm) for a different reason. A full-length coat drops 60 in (152 cm), so a rail at 66 in leaves 6 in (15 cm) of floor clearance, which is enough for the hem to miss the vacuum and not much more. Raising it higher gains nothing, since the garment length, not the ceiling, is the constraint.

Depth, and the hanger that sets it#

Depth is the input people get wrong, because they measure the alcove rather than the inside of the finished carcass. A shirt hanger is 17 to 19 in (43 to 48 cm) wide and hangs across the depth of the wardrobe. Add the shoulder of a coat and the swing of the garment and the working figure is 24 in (610 mm) internal, which is why every catalogue carcass in both measurement systems lands there.

Below 22 in (56 cm) the calculator stops recommending a conventional rail and tells you to hang front to back instead. That is a real fitting, not a compromise: a pull-out rail in a 14 in (356 mm) cabinet holds about a third of what the same width would hold across, but it fits where nothing else does. Doors change the number again, because a hinged door needs the full swing in front while sliders lose 2 to 3 in (5 to 8 cm) of internal depth to the track, a trade covered in bifold and folding door dimensions.

Where the numbers need your judgement#

The capacity figure is the one to treat carefully. One hundred and fifty four garments on 163 in of rail is arithmetically correct and practically optimistic, because it assumes uniform thin hangers and nothing bulky. A winter coat on a wooden hanger occupies 2.5 in (64 mm), not 1.5. The second figure the calculator gives, about 70 per cent of the first, is the one to plan to.

The long-hang share is a judgement about a person, not a room. Run the numbers twice, once for each occupant, before dividing a shared run, and see walk-in closet dimensions and layouts for how the split changes when there are two or three walls to work with rather than one.

Accessibility changes the caps outright. A rail at 80 in (203 cm) is unusable from a seated position, where the reach limit is closer to 48 in (122 cm), and the whole layout has to be rebuilt around that in accessible bedroom and closet dimensions.

What the planner deliberately does not do#

It does not draw your wardrobe. It returns dimensions and quantities, not an elevation, so you still have to place the drawer bank and the shoe shelves yourself.

It does not size the room around the unit. The clearance a person needs in front of an open wardrobe door, and the minimum room that follows, sit in closet and wardrobe dimensions and reach-in closet dimensions.

It does not check structure or fixings. A 96 in run of doubled rail carrying 108 garments is somewhere near 200 lb (90 kg) of clothing, which needs a mid-span rail support and fixings into something solid.

It does not know your drawers, your shoes or your carcass thicknesses. Those come from drawer sizes, depths and internal capacity, shoe storage dimensions and the freestanding sizes in wardrobe and armoire dimensions. It is a planning tool: use it to test a layout on paper before anyone cuts a panel, alongside the rest of the interior dimension calculators.