Wardrobe Closets

If you are interested in getting a wardrobe closet, you might want to take a look at a different type of closet storage unit that offers some of the same benefits as a wardrobe closet. No, this is not another type of closet organizer – although those are nice! Actually, it’s a whole other type of stand alone closet known as a portable closet.

What is a portable closet?

First and foremost, it’s a closet that is exactly what it’s name states – it’s something that is portable.. To this end, a portable closet is made to be something you can easily move from one place to another without struggling or hurting your back. This often means that they are equipped with wheels for easy transport. If there are no wheels, or in addition to the wheels, many closets are designed with handles so they’re easy to grab and carry.

Most portable closets stand 3 to 5 feet tall. These stand alone closets are not made of solid wood like their wardrobe closet armoire cousins. Instead, in order to make them portable, the materials must be light weight. This means portable closets are usually made of cloth, mesh, plastics, and other man made materials to keep them light and mobile.

Portable closets cost far less than wardrobe closets. On average, they tend to run under $100 for a portable closet, which is many hundreds of dollars cheaper than what many would consider a cheap wardrobe armoire. For this reason alone it is worth looking into the portable closet as a possible solution to your storage needs.

But what do you miss out on if you buy a portable closet instead of wardrobe closet furniture? Two things come to mind. One, wardrobe closets are simply nicer. They’re heavier, made of solid wood, and are truly built to last. (How else could there be a flourishing market of antique wardrobe armoire which are already hundreds of years old and still going strong?) Secondly, You don’t so much get a piece of furniture like you do with a wardrobe closet – hence the phrase, wardrobe closet furniture – but rather, you get a decent looking yet functional storage unit for your clothes or other closet items. In other words, you can trade aesthetics for function and still get the storage at a fraction of the cost of a wardrobe closet.

Stand alone closets offer many benefits and users around the home.

First of all, one can strategically place them or orient them in the room to their liking. This means that if it works out best to place a stand alone closet directly on the side of the bed your wife wakes up, then you can do so. Or, if this means it’s best to place the stand alone closet in the corner of the room, well, you can place it there too, no problem.

Even if the stand alone closet, such as a wardrobe closet is heavy and bulky and can’t really rightly be considered a portable closet, they can be moved as needed, something that obviously can’t be said for closets built into the design of a home.

The stand alone closet also offers the potential for decor benefits than a normal closet cannot. The doors themselves can be fitted with mirrors or artwork. This is also true of the sides of the closet. The legs of the unit may be designed with some flair, suggestible of Victorian and other styles common in antique wooden furniture.

The top of the stand alone unit can be used to place photos and other items arranged thoughtfully. Many stand alone closets come with engravings or designs built into their frames, making them not just functional but nice to look at and complimentary to the rest of the decor in the home.

The quality you’ll find in a stand alone closet depends on how much money you want to spend. The available designs run the range from focusing on function over beauty (for instance, Rubbermaid closet systems) to focusing on both beauty and function. Certainly, the more money you want to spend usually equals a more elegant design, higher quality materials in both the wood and metals used, and extra features such as additional drawers and cabin work inside the unit.

Finally, let’s take a look at one more area in regards to stand alone closets. There’s also a large distinction here between different items that are all stand alone closets but are quite different from each other. Broadly you can think of three different types of styles here. In one corner you’ve got  stand alone wooden wardrobe closets, which are heavy, made of solid wood, and sometimes costing  upwards of thousands of dollars. Then you’ve got what’s called a stand alone portable closet, designed to be economical and mobile, sometimes even with wheels on the bottom. And finally you’ve got the stand closets that are neither a wardrobe armoire nor portable closets, but function in their design and look as something in between, but with limited mobility. These are more like modern day wardrobe closets but are cheaper and not made with as high quality materials as an armoire.