The closet design
questionnaire, and how
to write the brief.

Most closet briefs that reach a workshop say something like “his and hers, lots of shoes, warm oak.” It is a mood, not a brief. A good closet design questionnaire does the work a drawing needs before anyone draws: a wardrobe inventory counted by garment length, the habits of the people who dress there, what should be seen and what hidden, a finish direction and a budget band. Collected properly, each answer converts almost mechanically into a bay, a drawer or a rod height.

The short answer: a closet design questionnaire should capture four things — what the client owns, counted by how it is stored (long hang, short hang, folded, shoes, bags); who uses the room, at what time of day and with which routines; what stays on view; and the finish direction and budget band. The workshop measures the room itself. The brief tells it what the room has to hold.

We write this for interior designers and architects, who usually hold the client conversation. What follows is the questionnaire we would want to receive, the reason for each question, and the arithmetic we apply to the answers.

What the brief is for, and what it is not.

Two documents feed a closet design: the survey and the brief. The survey is ours — wall lengths, ceiling and soffit heights, out-of-plumb plaster, outlets, risers, door swings. A rough plan dimension is enough to start; we confirm everything on site. Ask only what changes the drawing. The brief is yours, and it is about people and possessions. It answers the question no survey can: of all the elevations that would fit this room, which one fits this household?

The wardrobe inventory, counted by garment length.

Clients describe their clothes by type — shirts, dresses, suits. The workshop needs them by length and by thickness, because length decides the rod height and thickness decides how much rail each piece consumes. The most useful single instruction you can give a client is to count hanging pieces in three groups, garments they actually keep in this room, not everything they own. Rough counts are fine; a count within ten pieces is far better than a guess at “a lot.”

The conversion is pitch. On slim hangers, a shirt takes about an inch of rail, a jacket about two, a winter coat closer to three. Sixty shirts and twenty jackets therefore want a little over eight feet of short-hang rail — which double hanging fits into a little over four feet of wall. We explain the rod-height rule behind those numbers in our double-hang closet math. Ask, too, whether the client will change hangers; moving from thick wooden hangers to slim ones can be worth several feet of closet, and it changes the count we draw to.

Folded clothes, shoes and bags.

For folded pieces, ask the client to count by thickness rather than by category: knitwear and sweatshirts, T-shirts and lightweight tops, denim, and the small things — underwear, socks, gym clothes. Thick knits want a deep drawer or an open shelf with stacks kept to about ten or twelve inches high; T-shirts fit shallower drawers; socks and underwear want the shallowest drawers with dividers. One more question earns its place here: is there a dresser in the bedroom that will stay? If so, the closet does not need to duplicate it, and that width goes back to hanging.

Shoes are counted in pairs, with boots counted separately because they need a taller gap. Most adult pairs take eight to nine inches of shelf side by side, so a two-foot shelf holds about three. Ask how many pairs are in daily rotation and how many are seasonal; the first group belongs at eye level, the second can go high or low. Our note on shoe storage in small closets has the shelf spacing. Bags are counted by size, with a note of any that are kept in dust bags or boxes, because structured bags want upright cubbies and boxed ones want depth.

Then the things that are not clothes — luggage, bedding, a safe, jewelry, ties and belts, a steamer. Each is a high cabinet, an insert or a bay, and far cheaper to plan than to add.

Who dresses where, and when.

A shared closet is two inventories, not one. Ask for counts per person and ask how they want the room divided — by side, by wall, or by category. Ask each person's height: an upper rod near eighty-two inches suits most adults, but a client who is noticeably shorter may want that rod lower, or a pull-down rod, and a tall client may want the drawer bank raised a few inches. Ask when each person dresses. Someone who leaves before sunrise while a partner sleeps needs good lighting inside the closet and a place to dress there, rather than in the bedroom.

Then the daily habits, which are small questions with large consequences for the plan:

• Valet: do they lay out tomorrow’s clothes, or hang a suit to air? A pull-out valet rod at shoulder height costs a few inches of panel and saves a chair.
• Hamper: where does laundry go now, and who carries it? A tilt-out or pull-out hamper wants a bay of its own, usually near the door.
• Sitting: do they sit to put on shoes? A bench changes the floor plan and the clearances around it.
• Mirror and packing: is there a full-length mirror elsewhere, and does anyone travel often enough to want a surface or a pull-out shelf for an open suitcase?
• Growth and change: is the wardrobe still growing, or being edited down? We usually leave some spare rail in a new closet; the brief tells us how much.

What stays on view.

Ask what the client wants to see when the door opens. Some want everything behind doors, so the closet reads as calm cabinetry; others want a lit shoe wall, a row of bags or a glass-topped drawer for watches. Display decides where lighting goes, whether doors are solid, glazed or omitted, and whether a run of shelving needs a finished interior that a closed bay does not. For larger rooms, the same question decides whether an island earns its floor space; our walk-in dimensions guide sets out the clearances.

Finish direction and a budget band.

The brief does not need a specified finish, only a direction: painted or timber; light, mid or dark; matte or with some sheen; and what the closet should sit beside — the bedroom joinery, the flooring, the door hardware. That is enough for a first 3D design. Samples come next, from a finish sample box with costs confirmed before anything is ordered.

A budget band matters for the same reason. Without one, a first drawing is a guess about the client, not the room. Our published starting points are a reach-in from about $3,500 and a walk-in dressing room from about $18,000; within those bands, width, drawer count, doors, lighting and finish move the number. A band such as “near the reach-in starting point” or “a full dressing room, finish over quantity” tells us where to spend and where to hold back. Trade pricing is net, from a rate card we send on request; our guide to trade pricing for custom closets explains how designers usually carry it.

A closet brief template you can copy.

1. Room: which room, rough dimensions, ceiling height if known, photos of each wall and the door.
2. People: who uses the closet, each person’s height, and how the room is divided between them.
3. Hanging, per person: short-hang count, medium-hang count, long-hang count, suits and jackets separately, hanger type.
4. Folded, per person: knitwear, T-shirts and tops, denim, small items; whether a bedroom dresser stays.
5. Shoes and bags: pairs in rotation, seasonal pairs, boots, bags by size.
6. Everything else: luggage, bedding, safe, jewelry and watches, ties and belts, steamer or ironing board.
7. Routines: when each person dresses, valet, hamper, bench, mirror, packing.
8. On view: what is displayed, what is hidden, door preference, lighting.
9. Direction: finish direction, adjacent finishes and hardware, references.
10. Band and timing: a budget band, the decision-makers, and any renovation dates the work must fit.

If the client would rather fill in numbers than prose, our closet space calculator turns a wardrobe count into rail, shelf, shoe and drawer space, and it is a useful attachment to a brief.

How the answers become a drawing.

In practice, for a typical shared walk-in: the short-hang counts, divided by pitch, give each person’s feet of rail; halved, because two rods share each bay, they give the width of the double-hang bays. The long-hang count decides whether one long bay is enough or whether it needs to be shared. Folded counts become drawer fronts of three or four depths, stacked in a bank at hand height, usually below forty inches so the top can serve as a surface. Pairs of shoes become a column of shelves, its width set by pairs per shelf. The high shelves go to luggage and the off-season; the routines place the hamper near the door and the valet beside the mirror.

A brief written this way usually means the first 3D design needs adjustment rather than reinvention, and the revisions are about taste, not about whether the coats fit.

What is fine to leave blank.

Exact dimensions, construction details, hardware selections and lighting specifications can all wait; the survey and the shop drawings settle them. What should not be blank is the inventory. A brief with honest counts and an empty finish line is far more useful to a workshop than the reverse.

For the trade, the practical facts: the project consultation and a personalized 3D design are free, at the site or at our Bronx workshop; CAD and Revit resources are available on request; each project has a written scope and quote and a named contact; and we reply within two working days. The full program is on our page for designers and architects.