Free Closet Layout Planner: Drag & Drop With Real Clearance Checks

Create the walk-in closet you have always wanted with this free planner tool. Choose your room size, add essentials like different clothes hanging racks, doors, and an island to get the look you want.

How to Use the Closet Floor Plan Tool 

The planner scales up your closet and informs you if an item won’t fit. You just have to enter the room size, drag in the hanging sections, the drawers, and the island, and it will check the walking space as you move things about. There’s no need to sign up, and there’s nothing to install; it works on a phone, but a laptop is easier when it comes to the more complicated settings.

Start with the room – At the top, enter the width and depth in feet. Measure from wall to wall, from finished surface to finished surface, not from the framing. Each square on the grid represents one foot. Adjust things to the nearest half foot; you’re checking if a layout works, not placing custom cabinetry.

Drop in the storage and drag it around – The first row of buttons includes ten types of storage: single hang, double hang, long hang, shelving, shoe shelves, a chest of drawers, a corner unit, an island, a bench and a hamper. Each of these items goes into the first available spot at a realistic default size and all the elements align to 6 inch increments. If you click on any item you will be able to see its precise size. You can type in new figures or take the blue corner and drag it. Since your closet system won’t be available in neat 3-foot sections, alter the sizes.

Rotate so things face the room – The rotate button causes a piece to be turned in quarter-turn increments. The planner keeps track of the direction in which each unit is facing since it is the side that requires walking space. If a run is pushed up against the wall in the direction it is facing it will automatically flip itself around.

Choose from five door types that all act differently – If you drag a door towards any wall, it will lock onto that wall and then slide along it. What occurs afterwards will depend on the type of door you have chosen, and that is the entire idea. The in-swing and out-swing movements trace out a complete quarter-circle arc and at any time you can flip the hinge to the other jamb or push the swing outwards.

Since it folds in half, the bifold only covers half the opening. A bifold that is four feet wide sweeps over two feet of floor, not four feet. A sliding door has two bypass panels on a track and takes up no floor space at all. Pocket vanishes into the wall as well as the floor.
Switch from one to the other, and you’ll see the shaded arc appear and then disappear. In the case of a closet with a reach-in design, that arc is often the factor that decides whether a layout works or not.

Read the warnings as you go along – When the floor is shaded green it means there is sufficient space in front of the unit; if it is shaded red then there isn’t. Below the toolbar the problem is stated in simple terms, for example “Island has 24 inches of clear space on its right side and needs 36 inches all the way around”. You can use a dropdown menu to switch between the minimum workable clearances and the recommended ones since both are useful; the minimum will let you know if it will fit physically while the recommendation will inform you as to whether you’ll enjoy using it.

Save it, share it, print it – The layout is saved automatically, so closing the tab won’t result in it being lost. The Copy Share Link option allows you to put the entire plan into a URL which you can then text to your partner or send to a company you’re considering. With Download Image you get a clean plan complete with its dimensions. Using Print or Save PDF provides you with something you can give to someone face to face.

Best Practices for Creating Your Own Closet Floor Plan

Double hang is the cheapest storage you’ll add – Two rods placed at about 80 and 40 inches can hold around twice the amount of clothing than one rod alone, within the same space. Shirts, folded trousers and jackets can all be hung underneath 40 inches of hanging space. Fill your walls with double rods first and then use single rods and long rods only for items that truly require the extra height.

Dedicate one section to the long stuff if possible – Dresses, coats and robes all require a full height extension and for most people one section which is between two and three feet will be sufficient. If you go beyond that, you’ll be using a large part of the wall space for air.

Pick the door for the floor, not the look – A hinged door in a small closet is a luxury; if the arc takes up your walking space, a bifold door will halve it and a sliding or pocket door can get rid of it altogether. You should try all four of them in the planner before making your decision, as each one takes around ten seconds.

Be honest about whether you have room for an island – An island requires 36 inches of walking space on each of its four sides, and anything that is hung on the walls takes up 24 inches prior to the start of the space. Which is why the typical recommendation is that the room should be about 12 by 13 feet before the island can be considered appropriate. If it’s smaller than that, then a bench or a shallow row of drawers will provide you with the same drop zone without obstructing the walkway.

Shallow shelves beat deep ones – Shelving should be between 12 and 16 inches in depth; if you go deeper than that, the items at the back will disappear. Shoe shelves work best when the depth is about 14 inches; instead of adding that extra depth, use it on the walkway.

Corners are problem areas for closets – When two hanging rods meet in a corner the final 24 inches of each become almost out of reach. You can either accept this and use the corner for long-term storage or fit in a corner shelf and stop pretending that the rod extends all the way to the end.

Try out the version you think won’t fit – It’s free to do this, so it’s worth a try. Instead of having a hanging shelf, you can have drawers. Rotate the island by 90 degrees, move the door to the opposite wall and you’ll see that the arc ends up in a safe place. Most people end up choosing the layout they come up with on their third or fourth try.

What the Clearance Check Is Based On

Closets aren’t subject to the same level of regulation as bathrooms, since there is no part of the building code that specifies how deep the rod must be; those measurements are based on industry standards for closets and on the physical sizes of the items you’re storing.

Some of the numbers that the planner omits, but which you’ll need when you’re building.

• Single hang rod sits around 68 to 72.
• Double hang has an upper rod at a distance of 80 inches from a lower rod at 40 inches.
• The height at which the top shelf is situated is between 84 and 87 inches, equivalent to the height that most people can comfortably reach.
• A doorway should have a space of about five feet by five feet before it’s worth having, and four feet by four feet is the lowest it should be.

It’s worth knowing that these are guidelines rather than legal requirements; different companies have different practices, and a system designed for a particular room might reasonably violate one of these rules. You should use the planner to work out the layout and then check the specific details with the people who are carrying out the construction. Take the room’s dimensions, put them in, and then line the walls with double hangings. Install the door next and check where the arc ends up. All that follows is a matter of working with the floor space that remains.

When you come across a product that works, make a note of the share link so that future you, who is one day in a showroom and having to recall whether the drawer tower was 24 or 30 inches, will appreciate that you did.

To showcase highly specific designs, some images on this website use advanced AI-generation software to illustrate ideas and room inspiration. See our editorial policy to learn more.