Wardrobes are bought on the outside and lived with on the inside, and the pricing convention in Pakistan reflects the first of those and ignores the second. A rate per running foot describes a box of a certain width with a standard shelf-and-rail arrangement inside it. Almost nobody actually wants that arrangement.
So the useful question is not what wardrobes cost per foot, but what raises and lowers the number, and which of those things you should care about.
The carcass and the fronts
A wardrobe carcass has an easier life than a kitchen one — no water, no steam — so the board specification can be less defensive. What it does have is weight: a full-height run loaded with clothes puts a constant load on shelves, and thin board deflects over time into a visible sag.
The fronts are where the cost band is widest. Flat laminated and super-matte doors, tactile wood-effect boards, lacquered glass, mirrored panels and aluminium-profile glass all sit at different points, and a flat front is unforgiving of poor manufacturing — a run of them shows every inconsistency in the shadow gaps between doors. More on how we build them on the wardrobes page.
Sliding, hinged, or open
Hinged doors are the cheapest to make and need swing clearance, which in a Pakistani apartment bedroom is often the constraint that decides everything else.
Sliding doors cost more because the gear costs more, and they come with a trade-off worth knowing before you commit: with two panels you can only ever see half the wardrobe at once, and the overlap costs you a little usable depth. What you get back is the floor area the swing would have taken, plus the option of a mirrored or lacquered glass panel returning light to a room that has just lost a wall to storage.
Open, doorless dressing runs are the cheapest of all in materials and the most demanding in discipline — everything in them is on permanent display.
The interior is where the value is
This is the part that gets standardised in a cheap quote and the part you interact with every morning. Before we draw a wardrobe we ask an unglamorous question: how much of what you hang is long, and how much is short?
The answer changes the whole layout. Most people need far less full-height hanging than a standard drawing gives them, and far more double-hang, drawer and shelf space than they were offered. Then the specifics — how many pairs of shoes, whether handbags need to stand upright, whether jewellery wants a lined tray rather than a box.
“A wardrobe designed around a rail count is furniture. A wardrobe designed around a wardrobe is joinery.”
There is a longer version of this thinking in our guide to wardrobe design in Pakistan.
Hardware, and why it costs more here
A wardrobe door is heavier than a kitchen door and opened less often, which sounds like an easier job and is not. Weight sitting on an under-rated hinge for years is what produces the sagging door you see in older Pakistani bedrooms, where the gap at the top is visibly wider than the gap at the bottom.
Hinges and runners rated for the actual door weight — Blum and Hettich both publish the ratings — are the difference between a wardrobe that still closes cleanly in year five and one that does not. In a humid climate that already moves the timber, this is not a place to save.
The things that add cost, ranked by whether they are worth it
- Planned internal layout — the biggest improvement per rupee in the whole wardrobe.
- LED lighting on a door sensor — inexpensive, and it changes the wardrobe from storage into a dressing room.
- Full-extension drawers with quality runners — worth it; half-extension drawers hide their own contents.
- Aluminium profile glass fronts — genuinely beautiful and genuinely expensive. A want, not a need.
- A dressing island in a walk-in — only where the floor can spare it without narrowing the circulation.
- Velvet-lined jewellery inserts and trouser racks — small money, disproportionate daily pleasure.
Getting a comparable quote
Ask for the same breakdown you would ask of a kitchen: carcass board and grade, front material and finish, hardware brand and series in writing, internal layout drawn rather than described, and installation included. A wardrobe quote that specifies only width and finish is a quote for a box.
The same logic behind kitchen pricing applies here, and specifying wardrobes at the same time as the kitchen lets one finish carry across both — see how a single material reads across a room.
If you would like a figure for your own room, send us the plan or the dimensions. We survey, draw it in 3D, and quote it itemised.
Common questions
- How are wardrobes priced in Pakistan?
- Usually per running foot of width, at a rate that assumes a standard internal layout. That is why two quotes at the same rate can deliver very different wardrobes — the rate describes the box, not the inside.
- Are sliding wardrobes more expensive than hinged?
- Generally yes, because the running gear and the aluminium profile framing carry real cost. What you buy with it is the swing clearance a hinged door needs, which in a tight bedroom can be the difference between a wardrobe fitting and not fitting.
- Is a walk-in wardrobe more expensive than a fitted one?
- Not necessarily. A walk-in has fewer doors, and doors are expensive. What raises the cost is what goes inside — lit shelving, glass-fronted sections, drawer inserts and an island.
- What should I not economise on in a wardrobe?
- Hinges and runners rated for the actual door and drawer weight, and the internal layout. Fronts can be changed in ten years. A badly planned interior is with you for the life of the wardrobe.
