In this blog post, I’ll cover how we built a fitted floor-to-ceiling wardrobe with drawers in our bedroom. The wardrobe is a small double wardrobe with internal doors and storage cupboards above the main wardrobe space. Keep reading to find out how we built it.
THE PLAN
The plan for this wardrobe is quite simplistic. We wanted a small double wardrobe with large storage drawers inside the bottom half and more storage space above the clothes hanging area. We wanted it to sit in a corner where there is a tiny alcove next to the fireplace. This made the design a bit tricky because one of the wardrobe halves had to be a sort of ‘L’ shape. Generally though, the plan for the wardrobe structure is as follows:
The walls of the wardrobe sit on top of the bottom. The top then sits inside the walls. The back sits inside the walls, bottom and top. The shelf sits inside the wardrobe and is far enough back that the internal doors can close. Below the shelf is where we wanted to put three sliding drawers. There would be two of these built and attached together to form one wardrobe, but the other half would be ‘L’ shaped rather than a simple box. Then, on top of this, would sit two smaller boxes built in the exact same way for storage.
The design for each drawer is as follows:
The idea is to have three drawers per wardrobe side – so six in total.
MATERIALS & TOOLS REQUIRED
Note that some links below may be affiliated links. See our affiliate policy for more info.
Materials
Note that the sizes and quantities of everything will depend entirely on the finished size of your wardrobe.
- 18mm thick plywood – for the wardrobe and drawers
- 12mm thick plywood – for the wardrobe doors
- 5mm thick plywood for the door decor
- timber for the bottom frame – this should be wide enough to be covered by your skirting boards
- longer screws
- shorter screws
- timber for fixing to the wall (if required)
- pins
- wood glue
- wood filler
- good quality low and high grit sandpaper
- paint
- door handles
- door hinges
- wardrobe rail
- magnetic door catch
- drawer runners
- edge banding for finishing ply edges (if applicable)
Tools
- drill with relevant screw bits
- saw – I recommend a circular saw with a guide as a minimum to ensure straight cuts
- hammer
- good quality paint brush
- sanding block
- pencil
- ruler
- measuring tape
- level
STEP 1: BUILD THE BASIC WARDROBE BOX
The first step is to build the basic wardrobe boxes. As our wardrobe has only one ‘normal’ box, this is what we built first. We cut the pieces to size. Then, we attached the wardrobe box sides to the bottom. Next, we attached the top. Once the top was on, we attached the back and the shelf. We fixed all the parts together using a drill and regular wood screws. Overall, this is really easy to build – just cut the pieces and screw everything together.
Quick tip 1
Our shelf sits 5cm away from the wardrobe edge. This gap ensures that the drawer fronts can be level with the shelf, and the door will still close even with the drawer handles attached. As it’s nice to have the shelf end with the drawer fronts, it’s important to think about handle sizes at this stage to make sure everything fits, and the door will close comfortably.
STEP 2: BUILD THE SECOND WARDROBE BOX
Our second wardrobe box is ‘L’ shaped. For you, it will likely be the same as the first box.
The ‘L’ shaped box was much trickier to build. We followed the same principle of having all the walls sit on top of the base, the top inside the walls and the back inside the walls, top and bottom. This made the measurement of everything quite tricky. I think, for most cases, this isn’t needed, and you’ll build two or more of the basic boxes. But if you have a weird space you’re trying to fit a wardrobe into, use a free tool like SketchUp to design the sizes or cut the parts one by one and remeasure to avoid wasting material. Once we figured out our sizes, we fixed all the parts together.
Note the bottom of the ‘L’ shaped half. Initially, we built the whole box to have the open ‘L’ part. However, we soon realised that the bottom half has to be solid wood to attach drawer runners to it! We measured and screwed up another piece of ply to close that gap. In a perfect universe, the left side piece would have been cut to account for this, but we ended up having a join in the bottom. This is another reason why you might want to take the time to design this properly before starting if you’re working with an unusual space.
STEP 3: BUILD THE TOP STORAGE
The top storage is super straightforward to build. Just repeat the process of building the simple box like in the design above but on a smaller scale. To get the size right, consider how you’ll join the wardrobe to the ceiling. We really like coving, so we made sure to leave a gap big enough to put coving above the storage. This meant the height of our storage boxes was easy to get ‘about right’ – it didn’t have to be perfect. If you’re going right up to the ceiling, make sure your height measurement is spot on. Here is the complete frame before we slid it into place.
STEP 4: BUILD THE WARDROBE BASE
Before sliding the wardrobe into place, we built a base for it. This does two things: it lifts the wardrobe high enough for you not to hit your toes with the door every time you open it and gives you the option of putting skirting boards around the base if you want to. I like the skirting board look as I think it makes the wardrobe blend into the rest of the room like a real ‘fitted’ wardrobe, so our base was high enough to account for the flooring and skirting we would put down.
Quick tip 2
The wood we built our base from is thicker than the 18mm ply. This helps ensure that there is enough base overhang so that you can screw the wardrobe to the base through the floor once you slide it into place.
STEP 5: BUILD AND FIT THE DRAWERS
After we lifted the wardrobe into place, we built the drawers. We followed this very simple process for building drawers with fronts. We built six in total.
Quick tip 3
Depending on the layout of your room, you might want to screw your wardrobe to the wall to make sure it remains tightly fitted into place. We did this here by screwing directly through the back of the wardrobe and into the wall behind which is plasterboard. It isn’t a super strong hold, but it is sufficient given that our ‘L’ part of the wardrobe is tightly jammed into the alcove, and the other half of the wardrobe is screwed to it. It’s going nowhere.
Then, it was time to attach the runners. The ones we chose were absolutely nothing fancy – the cheapest you could get from our local DIY store. We fitted the bottom drawer first, then attached the second and third while trying to leave an evenish gap between each one. That’s actually a lot harder than it sounds! As a result, we did end up with slightly uneven gaps, but I think it’s not too terrible for our first attempt at building drawers like this. We did attach the drawer handles as we went, even though they’d be taken off for painting. It just made life much easier during the trial and error of fitting them.
STEP 6: BUILD THE WARDROBE DOORS
The doors are super easy to build. We used the same door design as when we built our alcove wardrobe and desk combo in another bedroom. We used 12mm plywood to cut the basic shape of the door. Then, we cut 5mm plywood into 10cm strips and framed the doors to give them a bit of depth. We attached the 5mm strips using wood glue and tiny pins. We did find that the pins are necessary to fix the strips properly – it’s much easier to use them than trying to find heavy weights to hold the strips down! If you do a good job knocking them in and filling over them, once painted a solid colour, you can’t see them at all.
After building the doors, we did test fit them to make sure the doors were just right.
Quick tip 4
Note how weirdly our doors open – they open from the outside edges in. Originally, I wanted the handles to be on the inside edges and the doors to open outwards. However, once the drawers were fitted, it became obvious that we wouldn’t be able to pull the drawers out in the left wardrobe if it opened towards the wall. This is because the doors are internal – unless they are opened super wide, they sit inside the wardrobe, and the drawer fronts will catch them. Opening the door super wide isn’t an option as there is a wall to the left of it. Make sure to think through how you want to fit your doors vs your available space so this isn’t a surprise during the build like it was for me!
STEP 7: CLEAN UP THE BUILD
Once we could see that everything fit as it should, we cleaned up the whole thing. This involved finishing exposed plywood edges, fixing a piece of ply above the top storage and attaching coving to it and filling any visible screw holes. To finish ply edges, we used edge banding where appropriate and filler in other places. We also made sure to apply edge banding to drawers. Then, as we were painting the wardrobe a solid colour, we removed all the fixings and applied wood primer all over.
Quick tip 5
It’s super important to decide on the finish for your wardrobe early on. We were always painting it a solid colour, so it was ok to use wood filler to finish some of the ply edges and screw holes. If you want to stain your wardrobe, any imperfections will be visible. You’ll have to take extra care not to have exposed screws and neater cuts on your ply. Investing in a pocket hole jig may be a good idea. Using masking tape on the plywood before cutting to prevent chipping will also be helpful.
STEP 8: PAINT AND ATTACH FIXINGS
Once all the imperfections are hidden and the wardrobe has had enough coats of undercoat, it’s time to paint. We painted it a solid light grey colour that matches the walls and looks lovely. After it dried, we attached the doors and all the fixings. We also attached the hanging rail and some magnets to catch the doors.
Once we laid the floor and skirting boards, the wardrobe was complete!
We’re very happy with the final result, although the fact that the doors open a different way from what was originally planned is quite annoying. I suppose it’s a good lesson learned to plan these things better in advance 😁
