To a certain extent, the physical architecture of your bedroom will dictate your wardrobe choices. If your room is dotted with nooks and crannies, a fitted wardrobe may smooth out the wall and exploit the room's natural space too.
Decide early on if there are going to be physical changes to the room, such as a division of the sleeping area from the rest of the room, or a walk-in wardrobe. Structural changes have an impact on the room's light, so plan carefully. Be particularly wary if your room only has one light source. Even partially blocking it can have unforeseen consequences.
Fully-fitted wardrobes are handy as they use all the available space, but they can tend to dominate a room. They can turn an uneven wall into a more pleasing single, smooth surface. However, using separate pieces of furniture can give a room a more individual feel - built-in wardrobes can often be soulless and utilitarian.
Beware the contemporary wardrobe, built floor to ceiling in a tall-ceiling-ed room, towering over its quaking occupants! Great expanses of doors can be broken up by using mirrors (either partial or full) which will lighten a room as well as breaking up the doors' lines.
Built-in or integrated bedroom wardrobes are the most efficient storage in terms of use of available space, and can be made bespoke to your own unique requirements. They'll fit your room's unique architecture and so leave no valuable space unused. They are, on the whole, more expensive than
free-standing models, and the best fitted wardrobes need the attentions of craftsmen to ensure their perfect measurement and fit: this does not come cheap!
Perhaps the least expensive wardrobe is a simple corner or alcove that you fit with a clothes rail and then curtain off. The fabric you choose for the curtain can be an integral part of the room's design. Even the heaviest fabric however will not afford the same protection against dust offered by a solid wardrobe. On the plus side, ad hoc wardrobes are easy to move around as they assemble and disassemble very quickly and so will suit those with mobile lifestyles, such as people who work away from home and students. It's worth remembering that wardrobes are a relatively new invention. Up to the end of the Tudor period, a curtained alcove was the de rigeur place to store clothes.
There remains one last option when considering which of the many styles of contemporary wardrobes to install - a clothes tent. Used in the past by campaigning soldiers (especially the officer class), a rigid frame of wood or metal is covered on four sides and roof with fabric. Cloth shelves and clothes hang from the frame, the shelves holding smaller items while the larger items (dress uniforms?) hang full length. Doors are fabric, held back with tie-backs, and the whole thing is pretty easily disassembled and moved around, although clearly not as easily as our ad hoc clothes pole and curtain affair.
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