NovA wardrobe recess is not a storage plan
How to judge apartment storage by the belongings you actually need to keep, not by a single wardrobe symbol on a floor plan.
This article reflects the named expert’s practical perspective. See NovAsia’s editorial policy for how material is prepared and reviewed.
A neat rectangle marked “wardrobe” can make a floor plan feel complete. The apartment has a bedroom, the bedroom has storage, and the question appears settled. I do not read it that way. Storage only becomes useful when we know what has to go inside, how often those things are used, and whether the owner can reach them without rearranging half the room.
That difference becomes obvious in compact Phnom Penh apartments. A full-height cabinet may take everyday clothes comfortably yet leave nowhere sensible for suitcases, cleaning equipment, spare bedding or a folding rack. Another wardrobe may look smaller but have a useful high shelf, a section for long items and enough clearance for its doors to open beside the bed. The visible amount of cabinetry is therefore a poor substitute for understanding the jobs it needs to do.
Start with awkward belongings, not easy ones
Shirts on hangers are rarely the difficult part. I begin with the things that usually end up homeless after move-in: luggage, a vacuum cleaner, a mop, bulky bedding, sports equipment, boxes that must remain accessible and the items brought out only a few times a year. Once those are named, the plan becomes much easier to judge.
The same wardrobe can work brilliantly for someone who spends a few months a year in the city and owns very little locally. It can fail a full-time resident who works from home and needs the second bedroom to remain a room rather than become a store. A family may care more about where the stroller and household supplies go than about another decorative shelf in the living area. None of these buyers needs an abstract “good amount of storage.” They need different volumes in different places.
Capacity is not the same as usable access
Access matters almost as much as capacity. Suppose two suitcases technically fit at the bottom of a deep cupboard. If getting one out means removing a vacuum, lifting three boxes and blocking the corridor, the volume exists but works badly. Very deep shelving has a similar problem: the second row of belongings disappears from daily life. A slightly smaller cabinet can be more useful when everything has a clear position and can be reached without dismantling the rest.
I like to imagine the apartment just after a trip. The owner comes home, empties a suitcase, puts it away, stores laundry equipment and returns the room to normal. Where does each step happen? A suitcase left beside the bed “until we decide” is already feedback on the floor plan. More cabinetry is not automatically the answer; first define what actually needs to be stored. The test shows whether the apartment absorbs ordinary life without turning spare corners into permanent storage.
A larger wardrobe can create a different problem
Adding cabinetry is not automatically an improvement. A deep built-in can narrow the route around the bed, steal a useful wall for a desk or make a small bedroom feel harder to use. In some layouts, two modest storage zones work better than one large one: daily clothes in the bedroom, luggage and household equipment near the entrance. In others, keeping the bedroom clear is worth more than squeezing another cabinet into it.
Designing around every object the owner has ever possessed creates another problem. Storage can consume the apartment before anyone moves in. I would separate what must be available every day from what can sit higher, farther away or even be replaced with a more compact version. A folding drying rack does not deserve the same position as everyday shoes. A suitcase used twice a year can live above eye level. Cleaning equipment that comes out several times a week should not require a trip through a sleeping area.
Remote viewing needs dimensions, not closed doors
For a remote purchase, dimensions are much more useful than a photograph of closed doors. Width, depth, height and the internal arrangement matter. So does the space needed to open the wardrobe. A plan may show furniture symbolically rather than to scale, and an apparently full-depth cabinet may partly contain building services. Those are not reasons for suspicion. They are reasons to ask what is physically available in the apartment being considered.
The simplest test is practical: can the buyer name where the inconvenient belongings will live? If the answer is clear, the wardrobe recess may be entirely sufficient. If several awkward objects are still being mentally parked on the balcony, in the guest room or beside the entrance, the storage problem has not been solved just because a floor plan contains a wardrobe symbol.