Sliding v Hinged Wardrobes: A Guide

Hinged doors have been a staple of wardrobe design for centuries, but today, sliding wardrobe doors have become a well-established and wildly popular choice, highly valued for their many practical and stylish benefits.

If you haven’t already decided to opt for a sliding door wardrobe, here are a few considerations, to help you weigh up whether hinged or sliding doors would be more suitable for you.

What are hinged wardrobe doors?

Hinged wardrobe doors are the traditional swinging doors attached to a wall, carcass or box via side hinges. They’re a classic style, but in today’s more compact properties, they tend to impose restrictions on your available floor space. Unlike modern sliding wardrobe doors, hinged doors require a dedicated patch of floor space that must remain completely empty so that the doors can open and there is also sufficient space to get past them to access the space inside.

 

Should I choose hinged wardrobe doors?

For homeowners debating between these two options, the space restriction is often the deciding factor. Consider the following:

1. Do you have enough floor space? The clearance needed for a hinged door often means you can’t place your bed, nightstand, or other furniture where you’d actually like them.

2. Does your wardrobe complement your interior design? Floor-to-ceiling mirrored panels are fantastic for reflecting light and creating a high-end look, they are often too heavy for traditional hinges to support safely. Attempting to reinforce hinged doors and carcasses for these heavy materials is often a costly and complex project. In contrast, our sliding door tracks are designed to ensure the doors glide effortlessly under the weight of premium glass and mirror, giving you that luxury floor-to-ceiling aesthetic without the expensive price tag.

3. Are you making the best use of all available space? In cosy bedrooms or flats where every square inch is premium, a swinging door wastes valuable space. Sliding doors can go beautifully from ceiling to floor, utilising every square inch of space, allowing you to store infrequently used items up at the top, neatly out of the way.

 

What are sliding wardrobe doors?

Sliding wardrobe doors are a sleek, modern storage solution designed to glide effortlessly on a track system rather than swinging out into your room. Unlike traditional doors that fight for floor space, sliding systems operate entirely within their own footprint.

By removing the need for door clearance, sliding wardrobes can help transform your room and make it feel so much bigger. At My Sliding Wardrobe, our doors fit floor to ceiling, glide effortlessly and you can opt. for soft close when you customise your wardrobe using our 3D design tool, making getting ready something to look forward to, particularly when you include full length mirror into the design!

 

 

How to Choose Between Hinged and Sliding Wardrobe Doors

Think About Your Space

In modern homes and apartments, floor space can be at a premium and furniture space in bedrooms in particular can be limited. Traditional free-standing wardrobes with hinged doors can feel bulky, taking up more room than you might expect, often without utilising the full height of the space. Even fitted wardrobes with hinged doors can be challenging, as they require plenty of clearance in front so the doors can open fully without hitting other furniture or nearby doors, while still leaving enough space for you to move comfortably around them. Sliding wardrobes avoid this issue, with doors that glide smoothly to provide easy access without encroaching on your valuable floor space.

Consider Your Current Storage Capacity

Sliding door wardrobes can be customised to suit all kinds of spaces, helping you make the most of the storage area you have available. Whether you’re working with a wide wall-to-wall area, something with an end panel or a narrow alcove, a sliding wardrobe can be custom-built to fit seamlessly into your home, with doors that don’t get in the way.

Sliding doors sit directly on the floor, without the raised base often required by hinged wardrobes and they also extend all the way to the ceiling. This gives you valuable extra inches of usable storage across the full height and width of the wardrobe space, which can make a huge difference to the volume of storage you get for your money.

Even in larger rooms, sliding doors are an ideal choice as they can utilise fewer doors than hinged alternatives to cover the same space. A full room-length wardrobe, for example, may need just three or four sliding doors instead of six or seven hinged ones, offering a clearer view of your belongings and much larger and easier access.

Express Your Contemporary Style

Sliding wardrobe doors offer excellent design flexibility, with high-quality materials, carefully selected colours and premium finishes that can be mixed and matched to suit your personal style. The look of your sliding doors can be fully customised to complement your living space.

Large floor-to-ceiling mirrored doors for example, are an extremely popular choice in the modern home, offering practical benefits when getting dressed while also enhancing the sense of space and distributing light around the room. This effect is far more difficult to achieve with hinged doors, where the weight restrictions of a heavy wood and mirrored door can make it difficult to move doors and lead to increased overall costs.

You can also select matt woodworks, premium woodgrains and coloured glass – which has a contemporary feel and like mirrors, has the ability to distribute light. It also provides a high-quality finish that simply isn’t possible with hinged doors.

Owing to their flexibility, space-saving design and personalised style, when it comes to wardrobes, fitted floor to ceiling sliding doors are the superior alternative to hinged doors, whatever the size or shape of your space. They also add more value to the room and property, making them the better investment.

 

Can you replace hinged wardrobes with sliding wardrobe doors?

Yes, absolutely! Swapping hinged doors for sliding ones is a very popular, cost-effective way to modernise a bedroom, increase your storage, and free up valuable floor space. Depending on your budget and space, there are a few ways to achieve this:

1. A complete replacement: You can completely remove your existing hinged wardrobes and fit a brand-new sliding wardrobe floor-to-ceiling. You can design this to fit the exact same footprint (or a new one) using our industry-leading 3D wardrobe designer.

2. A door swap: You can remove the hinged doors but keep your existing interiors (drawers, shelves and rails), adding new sliding doors in front. If your existing hinged wardrobes are not floor-to-ceiling, the top of the old wardrobe carcass can simply become a handy new top shelf within your new sliding wardrobe. You can use our sliding doors 3D builder to achieve this, and get in touch with us if you need any assistance.

 

How do I convert a hinged wardrobe to a sliding door wardrobe?

If you are just swapping your hinged doors for a sliding door upgrade, you generally need at least 83mm of clearance in front of the existing interiors, but within your existing wardrobe space. This 83mm minimum depth is to accommodate the tracks that our doors run on and is often not available. Alternatively, the most common way to complete your sliding door upgrade is to remove the hinged doors and fit the new sliding doors, tracks and casing directly in front of the existing interior.

This method also requires between 87mm and 130mm of space in front of your existing wardrobe (once the hinged doors have been removed and depending on access requirements and the number of tracks). Depending on how your current wardrobe is built into the room, you may also need to add end panels to encase the interiors and complete the wardrobe.

 

Do you need help converting hinged to sliding?

Converting hinged wardrobes to sliding wardrobes can sometimes feel a bit technical, but it’s something we love helping our customers with on a daily basis! If you have any questions please contact us anytime before placing your order and we will be happy to run through your options and ensure you get the right solution and perfect fit.

 

About My Sliding Wardrobe

 My Sliding Wardrobe is a leading specialist in bespoke, handmade custom sliding doors and wardrobes. Our wardrobes come with a 12-year and are handmade in the UK to the highest standard with style, quality, and affordability in mind. All of our custom sliding doors are manufactured with high-quality glass, mirrors, and woodwork finished in contemporary metal framework in a large range of styles and designs. You can use our exclusive and unique online 3D design tool to create your perfect wardrobe and if you need any assistance, please don’t hesitate to contact us any time, our friendly customer service team is available 7 days a week, 365 days a year.