Tag Archives: drawers

Swiss Wardrobe Quotation (Eeek!)

Whelp, after I sketched up those wardrobe ideas, we received the offers from Dogern. They are so professional they also give you some simple renderings, which easily impresses me.

If you’ve forgotten, here is our bedroom floor plan. Our floor is darker of course. Two windows on the top wall, the bathroom door on the upper right wall and the door to the rest of the flat on the bottom wall.

We plan to make just one wardrobe now and possibly (depending on cost) supplement with a dresser or two on the other walls.

Frameless Doors:

These Noteborn doors are so nice. The frameless adds a very elegant touch and makes the whole wardrobe blend seamlessly into the wall. They are our favourites, but we weren’t looking forward to finding out the price.

Matrix Doors:

The Matrix doors are a little more clunky and have a frame running around each individual door, so if we choose white doors to match the walls, the doors will be broken up by the lines of the frames in each section.

Option 1:

The idea of option one is to save money on those expensive, expensive drawers and just go for hanging space and using drawers where we can’t fit any more space. The reason why I haven’t made it completely hanging space is that Kay’s clothes (shirts and pants) are all fairly longer than mine, so on his side (on the right) it’s not quite long enough for three rows of shirts and pants to fit. On my side (the left) I think I can squeeze one more row in for maximum capacity!

Option 2:

On this version we stick drawers in each section. It cuts down on the hanging space but in general should be as much or more space than we had with our old wardrobes in Zürich. And we have lots of drawer space for pullovers and pants and things.

Again I made Kay’s section (this time on the left) have more space for larger/longer clothes and on my side (this time in the middle) I put extra drawers in.

Prices:

  • Option 1 with Matrix doors: 7225CHF ($7871)
  • Option 1 with Frameless doors: 9458CHF ($10,304)
  • Option 2 with Matrix doors: 10049CHF ($10,948)
  • Option 2 with Frameless doors: 12420 ($13,523)

Yes, yes those are some crazy prices. But I’m afraid we’ve looked at almost every custom wardrobe place along the border in Germany and in Switzerland and this is way cheaper than a lot of other offers out there. It would have cost 20,000 or so to do two wardrobes, which is why we are either doing one or supplementing with dressers.

It costs an extra 2300CHF ($2500) or so to get the frameless doors, so as much as we love them… no. I just can’t. Not for a non-forever home at this point in our lives. It would add to the value of the house, but we really don’t have the money right now and I don’t want to live most of the time here with nothing just so we can get something nice for a year or two before we leave. That’s not smart!

As for the price difference between having tons of drawers or going for the supplemental dresser route, we are debating whether it’s worth it to save 2824CHF ($3076) and use some of that money to buy a dresser or two and have more storage. We would just need to find some dressers we like, which isn’t so easy in Switzerland!

Were you ever surprised how expensive it is to do something custom in your house?

Planning Wardrobes/Closets

Before we met with the guys at Dogern, I had an idea of where we might want to have wardrobes so I sent over this floor plan of our room and where the wardrobes could go.

In the end, Kay and I decided that we probably don’t need all that wardrobe space and that it would be better to keep that corner by the bed free of any built in wardrobe. If we really need extra room we can buy a dresser in addition to the main wardrobe, but I told Kay it would be smart to keep it free. If Kay is studying abroad some day, there is a vague possibility that I would want a roommate if I stay in Switzerland by myself, so I thought it is smarter to be able to fit a desk in the bedroom if I need to put on in there.

It just keeps our options open, which I like. Plus I’m having trouble convincing Kay we should put a giant mirror in the hallway to cover up the utility panels, but he seems more open to putting one on the wall by my side of the bed.

Since I know we have to have three sections in the wardrobes, I wrote the wardrobe guy that we would like offers for two options.

Option 1:

The idea of  option one is that we give ourselves tons of hanging room utilizing lifting clothes hangers and then have an additional dresser on the other wall so I can store my socks, undies, etc all. This would also be a cheaper option because it has less of those €250-a-piece drawers.

Option 2:

The second option still utilizes raising hangers at the top, but it has a bunch of drawer space at the bottom so that we can fit all of our clothes into the wardrobe, not just the hanging ones.

I’ve asked to have prices for option one and two with and without frame-less doors. Going frame-less would look wonderful, but I’m afraid the cost will be too high, especially for option two with all its drawers. The more we talk about it, the nicer it would be not to have a dresser, but Kay hasn’t seen any with me so I’m a little unsure about that too.

Did you have a lot of indecision trying to figure out your wardrobe situation? Or are you still living with “meh, that works” situation?