Buying Guides
Buying the best wardrobe
Buying the Best Wardrobe for You at John Lewis & Partners
Finding the right wardrobe depends on the size and shape of your room, how you organise your clothes and accessories and how you prefer to access them. We have one of the widest assortments on the market with plenty of options from freestanding wardrobes and self-assembly designs to fitted and bespoke wardrobes. This buying guide will help you measure up and make the right choice when planning to make the best use of available space in a bedroom or guest room.
Types of Wardrobes
Freestanding
A stand-alone wardrobe can add real character to a bedroom. We offer a wide range of freestanding furniture to complement any interior décor, from open clothes rails and minimalist modern designs to traditional solid wood wardrobes.
- Freestanding wardrobes can be moved from room to room or to your next home
- Wide choice of styles available
- Open clothes rails display your collection
- Usually fully assembled or assembled for you in your home
- Measure carefully for delivery and for your room
- Secure your freestanding wardrobe to a wall for safety
Modular
Our ANYDAY John Lewis & Partners Mix It range of modular furniture is well priced and gives you the freedom to adapt the furniture to suit your room and to organise your clothes collection just the way you like. Mix It comes flat-packed, ready for you to assemble at home. Simply measure your space, choose your furniture colour, door colour and door handle. Mix It wardrobes come with one shelf and one hanging rail per double wardrobe. Additional internal drawers, hanging rails and shelves are available to complete your storage needs.
- Affordable Mix It range
- Hinged design with soft-close option available
- Choice of finish, colour and shape
- Additional internal drawers, shelves and hanging rails available
- Great for standard sized and shaped rooms
- Tall height room options available to maximise space
- Italian designed and manufactured
- Flat-packed for self-assembly
- Easier to carry up narrow hallways or stairways
- Faster delivery time
- Matching chests of drawers and other storage available
Fitted
At the end of every day you'll want a relaxing environment combined with a well-planned room that makes the best use of your available space for furniture and storage. To make the most of space in rooms with awkward shapes, alcoves, sloping, low or high ceilings, we can plan and install fitted wardrobes to your needs and requirements, and your preferred design and style, as part of our Fitted Bedrooms service.
Whether you prefer traditional or modern, there’s a wide choice with our own John Lewis & Partners Fitted Bedroom service as well as the ranges exclusive to us within Lawrence Walsh Fitted Bedrooms.
Lawrence Walsh is a family-run furniture company, shaped over three generations, rooted in its traditional values and dedicated to creating well-designed furniture. The ranges we offer are exclusive to John Lewis & Partners.
With this service, a designer will visit your home to design a scheme that helps you make clever use of space, with an extensive choice of colours.
- Free of charge design visit at your home
- Custom made and fitted with a choice of finish, colour and shape
- Makes uses of every inch of available space
- Customised internal drawers, shelves and hanging rails
- Matching chests of drawers and other storage available
- Made in the UK with leading manufacturers
- State-of-the-art technology and classic craftsmanship
- FSC-certified timber from sustainably managed forests
- 10-year guarantee
- Delivery and assembly by professional installers included
Wardrobe size and space
Depending on your room space and on the size and type of your clothes collection, you’ll need to consider how many wardrobe doors, hanging rails, drawers and shelves you’ll need.
Wardrobe size and doors
- Single or double wardrobes are ideal for compact areas
- Triple wardrobes or four-door models for larger rooms
- Sliding door wardrobes maximise the use of space
- Hinged door models allow you to see all your clothes at once
Wardrobe layout
- Think about shelves and drawers for folded clothes and accessories
- Full-length hanging rails for dresses and long coats
- Half-height hanging rails for shirts, skirts, trousers and jackets
- Adjustable shelves and rails allow flexibility
- Some wardrobes have internal LED strip lighting
Wardrobes for small rooms and spaces
- Consider low-height wardrobes, bedside tables or chests of drawers for smaller spaces
- Narrow wardrobes, such as our Wilton Narrow Wardrobe, are ideal for tight spaces
- Our Mix It range includes narrow single-door wardrobes
- Check the product dimensions for shallow depth models
- Fitted and bespoke wardrobes can be tailored to smaller spaces
Space-saving wardrobes
- Corner wardrobes maximise the use of dead space
- Floor-to-ceiling wardrobes from our Mix It range maximise space and hide away clutter
- Fitted and bespoke wardrobes fit around room quirks such as sloping ceilings
Wardrobe style, design and materials
Choose the right look to suit your room from sleek modern wardrobes with mirrored panels to traditional wooden designs with decorative touches.
- Mirrored doors create an instant dressing-room feel
- Soft-close doors without handles are more contemporary
- Door handles are often more traditional
- Painted finishes add colour and a light grain
- Solid wood is a more premium option
Nursery wardrobes
Keep your child's room nice and tidy with a nursery wardrobe from our collection. A nursery wardrobe and drawers help you store all their clothes away in a neat and easy-to-locate area.
- Small baby wardrobes introduce little ones to caring for and storing away their things
- Traditional wooden nursery wardrobes ground the room with a sturdy feature
- A white nursery wardrobe brings a fresh innocence into the space
- A grey nursery wardrobe blends pleasantly with contemporary décor
Measuring up for your wardrobe
Before you order a freestanding or modular wardrobe, it’s best to take some time to check that the furniture will fit your room and that it has the right proportions for the look you want to create. To check, map out the width, height and depth using newspaper, or mark out with masking tape.
- Leave yourself enough space to walk around the room comfortably
- Try not to overcrowd the space so you can retain a spacious look and feel
- Make sure there’s enough space for outward-opening hinged doors
- Allow for any nearby hanging lighting
- Consider sliding doors if there’s little room in front
- Measure floor space in front of any opening drawers
- Don’t position the wardrobe too close to doors and windows
- Check dimensions before ordering additional hanging rails, shelves and internal drawers
If you order freestanding furniture, be sure it will fit through the door when we deliver it. If you think it's going to be tricky, take a look at furniture that's partial assembly or flat-packed. We often remove legs from assembled furniture to reduce the possibility of transit damage. Tall pieces of furniture may need to be assembled on the floor and then lifted up, so do check that there's sufficient ceiling height for this.
Most of our freestanding wardrobes have fully assembled bases and you will only need to construct the top half of the wardrobe and attach it to the base.
When buying John Lewis & Partners Fitted Bedrooms as well as the ranges exclusive to us within Lawrence Walsh Fitted Bedrooms, you can arrange a free at-home consultation. A designer will take all the measurements for your customised furniture.
See our ‘Measuring up for Furniture’ buying guide for more information.
Product safety advice
We do our utmost to ensure all of our furniture is safe and tested to all current British and European standards. However, it’s important to assemble the furniture safely and to enjoy it safely in your home.
- Position heavier items on lower shelves or in lower drawers so that the furniture is less likely to topple
- Attach all freestanding furniture over 60cm in height to the wall. All furniture over 60cm in height will have a warning label attached as an extra reminder
- Never allow children to climb or hang on drawers, doors or shelves. This is extremely important when babies and children have access, as they might climb furniture to reach an item above their height
- Only put heavy items such as televisions on furniture that is suitably weight-bearing
- Only assemble furniture on firm level ground
- Ensure the product is fully assembled as illustrated in the instructions before use
- Check assembly packs and make sure you have all the parts listed
- Keep small parts out of reach of children
- Check all screws or bolts regularly and re-tighten as required, but never over-tighten
- Don't use power tools to construct where it's not instructed to do so, as over-tightening and panel failure may occur
- Make sure furniture legs remain in contact with the ground at all times and that furniture sits level
- Never stand on the product
Consider the type of wall that you’re going to position your furniture against and ensure you use the correct wall fixings. Plan the positioning prior to buying your furniture. Seek expert advice if you're unsure about which wall fixings to use or how to fix your furniture to a particular wall.
Need more help?
We have plenty of in-store and online guidance for you. Not all of our furniture is on display in our shops but you can order or pick up range cards and brochures to contemplate when deciding on a purchase. We have a Mix It brochure and planning guides for our fitted bedroom furniture.
For John Lewis & Partners Fitted Bedrooms, you can book online for a free planning and design appointment in your home, or call 0800 021 4361, or ask in our shops (except John Lewis & Partners Tunbridge Wells at Home). Take a look at our John Lewis & Partners Fitted Bedrooms and Home Offices brochure. For Lawrence Walsh Fitted Bedrooms, call 0208 941 8181 or email sales@lawrencewalsh.co.uk for a free planning and design appointment, or to order a brochure, or view a Lawrence Walsh brochure here (opens in a new window).
Services and guarantees
With fitted bedroom furniture, once you’ve arranged a free at-home visit, a designer will measure up, work out design details and an estimate will be given to supply and fit the bedroom. Once the estimate is accepted by the customer and the deposit paid, the surveying date will be arranged then the balance is to be paid prior to installation. The fitted furniture is built in by a qualified installer with care and attention to detail. All John Lewis & Partners and Lawrence Walsh fitted furniture comes with a 10-year guarantee.
For fitted furniture, John Lewis & Partners is an official Installation Standards Partner of the government sanctioned and industry supported Institute of Kitchen, Bedroom & Bathroom Installers (iKBBI). Each of our experienced fitted bedroom installation specialists has been measured against stringent criteria in place to protect the best interests of UK consumers, and independently accredited by the iKBBI. Our installers work to our own high standards in addition to the iKBBI code of conduct, details of which can be found at www.ikbbi.org.uk (opens in a new window).
Take a look at our Furniture Assembly Service within Home Furnishings to see how we can help assemble furniture for you. For John Lewis & Partners freestanding and modular bedroom furniture there is a one-year guarantee. Our children's furniture ranges pass all British Standards safety and quality tests and we go beyond the legal requirements to ensure we have a variety of safe, versatile and inspiring designs.
Delivery & assembly
Delivery and assembly for John Lewis & Partners Fitted Bedrooms and Lawrence Walsh Fitted Bedrooms furniture is included in the price.
The ANYDAY John Lewis & Partners Mix It modular furniture range is flat-packed for self-assembly. For freestanding wardrobes, check the product specifications on your chosen wardrobe’s product page for details on whether it is delivered partially or fully assembled. Our standard delivery option is free if you spend £50 or more. Exceptions apply to large items being delivered to non-UK mainland locations.
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Find out more
At John Lewis & Partners, we are one of the few retailers that can offer everything sleep-related in one place - covering furniture, mattresses, duvets, pillows to decorative bed linen, as well as accessories.