Wardrobe in the hallway: design, types and selection

It is difficult to imagine a typical modern corridor in which there was no place for a closet, because this is a universal furniture for storing everything. When making repairs in the hallway, you need to enter this piece of furniture in the design so that it looks harmonious there, fully fulfilling its main responsibilities.

Not only the theater, but also housing usually begins with a wardrobe - a place where you can leave your outer clothing. The specifics of the Russian climate, even if you live far in the south, is such that you can’t do without jackets, coats and fur coats. It is not too nice and practical to keep them on a hanger in the hallway all year round, but to buy a separate wardrobe, which will take up space in the room and be empty throughout the winter, also makes no sense. This can be installed right in the corridor - then you can quickly respond to changes in the weather, and outerwear designed to go outside will not be hidden somewhere deep in the apartment.

In addition, many modern cabinets can be used for purely economic purposes.

The furniture located here can be quite large without disturbing anyone., and modern manufacturers understand the needs of people and provide special departments in the design for storing any things.

There are a great many varieties of cabinets, and before you get this or that kind, you should figure out which one suits you more.

First you need to understand that a sliding wardrobe can be cabinet or built-in. The first option involves having your own body - this is an independent piece of furniture, you can move it to another place at any time. With the built-in it will be somewhat more complicated - it is mounted on the walls and from the side it looks like the same pantry.

Regardless of which of the furniture options you have chosen, it can be with or without doors. Open cabinets are often included in modular designs, since on unprotected shelves you can store only those things that are not very afraid of dust, for example, shoes. For clothes, classic sliding wardrobes with a sliding door are still more suitable.

A typical accessory for the hallway is a spacious wardrobe-hanger, where you can immediately hide the entire wardrobe of all household members put together. However, if you already decided to organize a full-fledged storage for things here, additional modules will be quite out of place. So, an additional closet-case on the side, which is a tall and narrow frame, provided that it is filled with a large number of shelves, allows you to store not only outerwear, but also any other clothes.

In the lower part, a special shoe rack can be allocated, even with a seat for more comfortable shoes.

Finally, variation also applies to the shape of the product - it is far from always exploiting a hackneyed rectangle. Today, semicircular radius models are popular that will appeal to everyone who does not like the excessive angularity of the room - at the same time, such an object can also separate the living room, which goes into the hallway without any pronounced door. In addition, trapezoidal cabinets are often placed in the corner, which effectively use the space without cluttering it. The only problem with using all of this unusual shape furniture is that it’s hard to pick up additional wall-mounted modules of a similar shape.

A good closet in the hallway itself is a bulky and complex design, and even must meet the best expectations of the owners regarding durability. Not to mention the aesthetic appearance. All this leads to the fact that in terms of frame material, you have to choose from only two options - natural wood or MDF boards. Of course, the exterior decor is made of anything, including plastic and glass, stone and metal, and even leather, but they are not so important for extending the life of the product.

Wood, such as maple or walnut, alder or oak, will cost the future owner a tidy amount, and yet it definitely should not be discounted. This material has so many advantages that its price for any sober person will be adequate. Not only is such a cabinet beautiful without any potentially harmful painting - it is, in principle, completely safe due to the naturalness of the raw materials used, but at the same time it looks elitist.

MDF is a high pressure pressed wood chip. Of course, such artificial material, both in strength and durability, is much inferior to the real massif, but the plates are relatively inexpensive, although this is still the same natural, environmentally friendly raw material that is difficult to distinguish from the “massive” counterparts.A specific advantage of MDF for men “with hands” is the fact that, if desired, you can put together a cabinet yourself by purchasing material and armed with drawings. With supposedly low durability, it is still an acquisition thirty years ahead, so the choice in favor of MDF can hardly be called unsuccessful.

It is not enough to choose a spacious and roomy cabinet - it is important that it is functional specifically for your needs, because furniture should be evaluated not only by the frame, but also by its internal content. Requirements for a quality and thoughtful product are usually as follows:

• the basis of the basics of the decor for the corridor is the department for storing outer clothing, which should not only be equipped with hooks or a longitudinal bar with hangers, but also must be quite wide so that all the things of the owners fit inside;
• side drawers for everyday clothes and other things in the hallway are optional, but in a cramped apartment they may be appropriate;
• The “correct” wardrobe for the corridor usually also includes the lower section, designed specifically for storing shoes;
• Drawers are not found in every model, and not all owners need them, but if you have many small accessories, sometimes this addition can come in handy.

The above details are usually initially part of your furniture, but some components are sold separately, and you will have to purchase them separately. These additions include the same mezzanine, which allows you to productively beat high ceilings without occupying excess space in the horizontal plane.

Mistresses often supplement the closet with a neighboring mirror (if the doors of the furnishings themselves are not mirrored) and a dressing table, due to which a complete makeup area is also obtained.

When deciding on the choice of such furniture, it is important to pay attention not only to strength, durability and price, but also to practicality in terms of the ability to contain as many household items as possible. A good cabinet should be, on the one hand, quite large so that you do not think about buying additional cabinets, on the other hand, do not take up too much free space and fit into the dimensions of the corridor.

At the same time, even being constrained by the quadrature of your own home, you must remember that the body must be quite deep so that the outer clothing fits inside without being dented. If there are not too many of them, but there are a large number of smaller things, it makes sense to purchase a model of a non-standard, for example, rounded shape.

In small-sized apartments with small corridors, the question of storing something, in general, is very acute, because high cabinets are in great demand. This is very practical - if you have literally one square meter to place such furniture, and the entire space goes under the main compartment for outerwear, leaving no room even for the side shelves, it makes sense to make the cabinet multilevel by adding a mezzanine on top. By the same logic, the shoe compartment is not distinguished into a separate piece of furniture - on the contrary, it is built into the general frame and is located under the main department. In dwellings with low ceilings, it makes sense to install modular structures right up to the ceiling, especially if the owners cannot complain about their own short stature.

A beautiful design option should be considered the implementation of furniture in a classic wooden version, when the creators do not hide the material from which the frame is made. You can decorate it in the most unexpected ways from the usual carving to the already somewhat forgotten burning of drawings.

If the cupboard does not have a characteristic wood shade, then it will almost certainly be white, and such a solution is quite understandable.

• In many small apartments, the corridor cannot boast of space, and therefore the attempt to install at least a relatively large piece of furniture here greatly narrows the territory. To expand it, at least visually, is necessary due to the white color.
• The entrance hall is exactly the room into which natural light from the street enters in a very limited quantity, which means that the owners themselves are interested in ensuring that the corridor is not perceived as a gloomy crypt.

An alternative solution is a mirror cabinet - this approach cannot be called original now, but it is practical. First of all, both of the above goals are achieved, for the sake of which it makes sense to choose a white model - the room visually expands and becomes brighter. In addition, it is from the hallway that people go outside and quite naturally want to evaluate their appearance, and mounting a mirror directly in the cabinet door allows you to kill two birds with one stone without occupying the extra area on the walls.

A typical corridor rarely suffers from an abundance of furniture - if you bought a multifunctional closet with a large number of compartments, and even with mirrored doors, it may be that there will generally be no other furniture here. It means that such a large piece of furniture plays an almost decisive role in the overall design of the room, because it is simply impossible not to notice it.

So, if you like the classic style or the rustic styles that are relatively close to it, then you simply must pay attention to a solid and large cabinet that looks extremely natural, that is, unpainted in any other color than natural. Classicism is wealth, therefore it is impossible to save on the situation neither in terms of money, nor in terms of space. In addition, the old masters focused on familiar and proven rectangular shapes, all of these rounded and even more intricate shapes then simply did not exist.

The choice of furniture should be taken very differently if you more like minimalism and its various related trends. In itself, this style eliminates the abundance of decor and, in general, any details that could not be removed, because the cabinet will look extremely simple. If your minimalism has the characteristic features of hi-tech, which in principle is not too friendly to materials of natural origin, then you literally have to choose a model with a mirror door, because glass is almost the only material that is often used in the manufacture of cabinets and is completely appropriate in the interior of the future.

The Scandinavian style in this regard is the least picky: on the one hand, it focuses on a predominantly white interior, on the other, he welcomes the use of natural materials, and also allows interspersing with bright accents, and such a painted cabinet may turn out to be.

Of course, creative styles such as Art Deco leave the greatest freedom of expression. One of the main requirements of this direction is unbanality in everything - including the decoration of furniture. How this will be implemented is no longer so important - you can achieve the desired effect using the atypical shape of the case, leather, metal, glass inserts and much more.

Buying a closet in the hallway, most people make an impulsive choice, focusing on an attractive appearance or attractive price. This, of course, is not the best logic, because such furniture is not just a decoration for the interior, so you should consider all the options available, evaluating them according to several criteria.

• Dimensions Your guideline is the golden mean between a good product capacity and its compactness, at least relative. It makes no sense to take a cabinet with a huge amount in reserve, but the buyer must understand that if everything does not fit in, you will have to purchase a cabinet as well, and then saving space will still fail. In a long and narrow hallway, get a tall cupboard - it may not be so convenient if you are not tall, but this is no alternative way out of the situation. Pay special attention to modular designs - they are good for those who suggest a potential expansion of needs, but do not see the point of immediately acquiring a bulky design.

• Wireframe. This is the element on which the life of your headset depends - if it breaks or spoils, it is unlikely to be repaired. It is best to choose MDF or even real wood, because they are strong and durable, and also completely safe in terms of ecology, but modern plastic solutions can be unpleasantly surprising.

• Integrity. What consumers too often forget about is an adequate inspection of a particular piece of furniture. The model as such can be good from all sides, and you can’t find fault with it, but you can bring a product with defects, scratches, cracks, chips, and so on. It doesn’t matter if the cabinet was still in stock or damaged when it was delivered to your home - you don’t have to pay for goods that do not meet expectations. At a minimum, the above-described minuses will affect the aesthetic attractiveness of the design, and after all, the money was not spent in order to be shy of every guest who stepped on the threshold. In addition, damage to fittings and fasteners can lead to the fact that the furniture as a whole will lose some of its functionality, if not immediately, then relatively soon.

• The form. This criterion is far from paramount, but it also cannot be completely ignored. The frame design should not interfere with the normal movement along the corridor, and it must fit into the overall interior design. It should be remembered that even the most beautiful furniture that looks like an alien body is unlikely to decorate the apartment.

• Number of doors. Such a characteristic is considered last and is largely related to the issue of dimensions. If a huge headset has only one door, then in open form it will occupy a huge additional space, and this is less convenient than if there were two doors. At the same time, for the sake of saving space, many modern models are equipped with sliding doors - they do not increase the dimensions of furniture even when open.

It is reasonable to place a cabinet - another task that for some reason not all consumers have completed correctly the first time. Be guided by the principles prompted by logic.

• The headset should not interfere with door opening. The corridor is the place where the doors are at least two: the street and the one that leads from the depths of the apartment. If they do not open inside the corridor, the problem disappears by itself, otherwise you need to allocate space for the structure so that it does not intersect with the radius of opening the doors.Otherwise, you actually disable the doorways, and if you yourself can be quite nimble to sneak into a narrow aperture, then the problem will remind you of itself as soon as you buy some other large piece of furniture that simply cannot be to carry.

• The cabinet should not interfere with movement around the room. Too many consumers believe that this requirement is for furniture with closed doors, but if they are hinged, they can significantly increase the volume of the structure. In theory, there is nothing to miss another household by temporarily closing the door, but if you live not alone, and almost all the things of the whole family are stored in the closet, you need to be prepared for the doors to be opened wide often. This means that the actual volume of the headset will be much larger, and sooner or later this will lead to the accumulation of irritation.

• The contents of the cabinet affect where and how it is located. If the headset is in the hallway, it is better to choose it in such a way that, from a logical point of view, it corresponds to the procedure for preparing a person for the exit. A separately equipped shoe rack with a seat is almost always located closer to the exit, because you will never go outside barefoot, and it makes no sense to rub dirt if you do not use any other compartment of the cabinet anyway during the summer. If you also store casual clothes here, then you may need them at any time even without going out, so the sections with it are located as close to the living quarters as possible.

• Open cabinets should be installed as far from the kitchen as possible. As a rule, a modern range hood is able to effectively cope with the tasks of eliminating specific kitchen odors, but it is largely oriented towards the space above the stove, and the source of aromas can be located elsewhere. Even if you like the dish, and you find the smell pleasant, it’s not accepted to smell food in our time, therefore you should protect your clothes as much as possible from contact with the smell. If the design is of an open type, it is reasonable to at least move it as far as possible from potential danger.

And a few more useful tips.

• Do not save on the purchase of a cabinet. Such furniture is not an accessory whose constant replacement is worth thinking about, because it is better to buy it once - and for decades to come. High-quality samples of natural wood in some cases serve for half a century or more, and you should not think that the design will become obsolete - on the contrary, it will become vintage and even cooler.
• Do not go to the store, not understanding why they came. Before going for furniture, roughly estimate how many things you have that have nowhere else to place, and add to this a small supply of space that allows you to expand your wardrobe. Think about which compartments, shelves and so on are needed to comfortably place everything, how many hooks you need, whether a shoe rack is needed. Having compiled a minimum set of requirements, you are unlikely to later realize that something is not taken into account.
• Purchase goods at proven points of sale and always require certificates. Everyone has heard about the dangers of modern materials, but the same MDF and wood are perceived as environmentally friendly, but do not forget about varnish, which can also be toxic. In addition, cunning sellers are able to give out cheap and low-quality chipboard for a more popular and expensive MDF.

It hardly seems necessary to tell what a typical modern wardrobe looks like - another thing is if you want to embody some unbanal idea in your interior.

The photo shows a vivid example of furniture that fits the concept of art deco style. This is not just a functional unit, but a real work of art. The question remains open about the capacity of such a cabinet, but it cannot be denied at least compactness, and also the ability to be the highlight of any room, wherever you place it.

In this example, it is only at first glance the same thing - although the concept is generally similar, it is sheer minimalism. The product seems bright and colored, but in fact, all these iridescent highlights are just reflections of hanging clothes. The unusual shape and glossy surface make it possible to fit such a solution into a high-tech apartment.

If you are not a stranger to the classic, you can give preference to the usual wooden cabinet. However, its equipment with shelves no longer allows you to call it ordinary, and besides, you can place a lot of useful small things and accessories on them.

Next, watch a video with tips on choosing a closet for a narrow hallway.