Does a bedroom need a cupboard?

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GeoffisPure

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#177116 22-Jul-2015 22:41

Hi all - your opinions please!

This is a crudely drawn version of the bedrooms in my house. The red squares are the bedroom cupboards. Bedroom 3 is very small and has a cupboard that takes up a corner of the room. So the question is, does a bedroom NEED a cupboard? Or should I consider knocking this cupboard down to make the room bigger? Would you find it strange when buying a house if one of the rooms didn't have a cupboard?

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#1350119 22-Jul-2015 22:45

You mean wardrobes?

I've seen rooms before that just have a chest of drawers and a coat rack thingy.

Personally, i like a wardrobe but i see what you mean.

blakamin

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#1350120 22-Jul-2015 22:49

A family would want one. One of our rooms doesn't have one, so now the Ikea wardrobe takes up more space than a built-in ever would.

mattwnz

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#1350122 22-Jul-2015 23:24

Are you really gaining much usable space by removing it? It doesn't really look like it, because you have the door next to it which reduces what you can use it for. Bedrooms should have built in cupboards these days, as buyers will pick that up.

timmmay

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#1350158 23-Jul-2015 07:13

Yes, it does. For both clothes and storage. One of our rooms doesn't have one, it's annoying.

reven

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#1350160 23-Jul-2015 07:21

any chance you could shift it into bedroom 1 to gain the space?

Personally I think every bedroom needs a wardrobe. Otherwise you need to get a free standing one, which are usually ugly and give you less storage space.

jmh

458 posts

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#1350165 23-Jul-2015 08:08

In a 3 bed house I would expect a wardrobe. In a 5+ bed you might get away with it by calling it an office or something. Any option to extend out, e.g. into bedroom one or add an extension?

Dingbatt

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#1350166 23-Jul-2015 08:19

Friends were advised by a real estate agent that they couldn't advertise their house as 5 bedroom because the fifth room didn't have a wardrobe. That despite the fact that all 5 rooms are used as bedrooms at the moment.

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xpd

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#1350178 23-Jul-2015 08:45

Having wardrobes in the bedrooms was one thing we wanted when looking for a house. Found a couple of places that were perfect, until we hit the bedrooms and found no wardrobes - would lose space to drawers etc instead.

Depends what the room is to be used for I guess..... if a bedroom, then youre going to lose space anyway with whatever you replace the wardrobe with. Id just keep it as is.

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#1350180 23-Jul-2015 08:47

Dingbatt: Friends were advised by a real estate agent that they couldn't advertise their house as 5 bedroom because the fifth room didn't have a wardrobe. That despite the fact that all 5 rooms are used as bedrooms at the moment.

Using that mentality means one house we looked at had no bedrooms then. ;)

I see where theyre coming from though, would be a little unusual to have wardrobes in all bedrooms except one.

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andrew027

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#1350182 23-Jul-2015 08:51

It's your house, so you should do whatever works for how you intend to live in it.

If you're going to use it as a study or a guest room (for people who only stay for a night or two) then you probably don't need it, even though it's always useful to have a bit more storage space in a house for yourself.

If it's going to be a nursery or room for a very young infant you can pretty much get away with using a chest of drawers, but once kids get past toddler age you really do need somewhere to put their clothes and shoes (and toys).

And if you want to think about resale down the track, most buyers, particularly families, will want a wardrobe in every bedroom.

alasta

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#1350185 23-Jul-2015 08:53

My bedroom doesn't have a wardrobe as such, but it has a railing for hanging my clothes which is essential in my view.

It helps that I live alone though because I utilise storage space elsewhere for personal possessions that I would otherwise want to have in my bedroom if I were flatting. So, in a place with more than one bedroom I would say that having a wardrobe is very important.

jmh

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#1350188 23-Jul-2015 09:04

I use one bedroom as an office and the wardrobe has shelving in that I use to store stationery and a bunch of other stuff. I can close the door when I want to make it look tidy.

Nudibranch

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#1350189 23-Jul-2015 09:06

We are wrestling with the same thing in our house at the moment. After reading some comments from others in this thread I think we will try and keep our built in one rather than try and gain the space by removing but I was thinking we could do something like change the doors. At the moment we have 2 doors that swing open. These could be replaced with sliders or was even thinking remove all doors and edging and be left with an alcove type space for an open wardrobe and maybe a curtain or blind or something to hide it. Would have to be done right to look good but just an idea. Best of luck!!

Sideface

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#1350208 23-Jul-2015 09:33

reven: any chance you could shift it into bedroom 1 to gain the space?

Personally I think every bedroom needs a wardrobe. Otherwise you need to get a free standing one, which are usually ugly and give you less storage space.

+1

Good plan.
We did this in our 1918-vintage house, which was very short of wardrobe space.

Be warned that this is a major undertaking - it is very hard to disguise the "liberated" area in the smaller bedroom, esp. the ceilings.
You would need to re-line two walls and resurface the floor, at a minimum.
NOT a DIY job.

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#1350210 23-Jul-2015 09:34

My daughters bedroom doesn't have one, and while it is a little annoying, having one that sticks out of the corner of the room (like in the OPs sketch) would be just as annoying IMO, especially in the smallest room in the house. I'd say do whatever works for you.

As for the real estate agent advising that you're not allowed to advertise a bedroom as a bedroom because it didn't have a wardrobe, what a joke. We have looked at so many houses where one bedroom didn't have a wardrobe, either that advice is complete rubbish or 95% of real estate agents just ignore it.

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