Expert Advice on How to Choose the Perfect Chest of Drawers
Which chest of drawers is right for you?
Chests of drawers are an important addition to any bedroom. A focal piece of furniture that helps to establish your interior style, chest of drawers can be a great space-saver, something crucial for smaller rooms. However, they are oftentimes a bit of an afterthought, with the bed, beside tables and wall decor taking centre stage. That's why we've put together our chest of drawers buying guide, to help make finding the right chest of drawers as easy as possible.
Chest of Drawers Types
Vertical Chest of Drawers
Standard chests of drawers, also known as vertical chest of drawers, are tall and narrow storage pieces. If your bedroom is on the small side, a vertical chest of drawers is an ideal option for clothes storage, although it typically will have less space than a wider dresser. You can also pair a dresser with a vertical chest of drawers for extra storage that takes up less space.
Tallboy Chest
A tallboy chest is a taller and skinnier version of a standard chest and is traditionally used for small articles of clothing such as lingerie. If you often find you can’t fit all your socks and undergarments in a disorganised dresser drawer, a tallboy chest can help you organise these items in separate drawers. A tallboy chest is also useful for other small items like jewellery, skin care products, makeup and seasonal items like swim suits.
Gentleman's Chest
A gentleman’s chest gets its name from its tall cabinet section, which can be used to hang suit jackets, dress pants, ties and more. Some cabinets have rods for hanging clothes, while others have built-in shelves instead. A gentleman’s chest is similar to a combo dresser because it usually contains both drawers and wardrobe doors. However, a gentleman’s chest is tall while a combo dresser is narrow.
Bachelor’s Chest
A bachelor’s chest is a small, narrow chest with about three to four drawers and is traditionally meant for a single person with limited clothing storage needs. This furniture piece is considered a chest instead of a dresser because it is narrow and has limited storage space. Bachelor’s chests are sometimes small enough to also serve as nightstands.
Media Chest
A media chest is a piece of storage furniture similar to a dresser but with an open top shelf for a cable box. Media chests work well in both bedrooms and living rooms as an entertainment center. A media chest is typically wide like a dresser but tall so you can rest your television at a comfortable viewing height. You can store clothing in the drawers and cabinets or use these spaces to store movies, remotes, extra wires, and more.
Combi Chest of Drawers
A combi chest of drawers usually looks like a standard chest with one or two cabinets attached to the side or in the centre. It's easy to organise clothes in a combi chest's differently sized drawers and shelves. These chest of drawers include both dresser drawers and wardrobe doors that open to reveal shelves or a space to hang clothes. If you're storing more than just clothes in a chest of drawers, a combi model is ideal.
Space:
Chest of drawers usually work best against a wall, although in very large rooms they can be useful to divide a space. Measure the length of the wall or walls you're considering to place a chest on to see what the largest size you can accommodate will be. Remember, it's not just the wall that must 'measure up'. Consider how much it can stick out into the room without getting in the way of walkways or feeling like it's blocking off too much space.
Storage:
Once you know what space you're working with, determine the amount of storage space you need. Will you be storing just a few wardrobe essentials or will your chest of drawers house everything from bedding to jewellery?
Height:
Heights for chest of drawers vary greatly, especially with modular pieces that allow for more than one piece to be stacked, so you can more or less have any height you like. The two things to bear in mind when deciding on the height of your chest of drawers are comfort and easy accessibility. You want to be able to reach everything in your dresser when putting things away and getting them out.
Materials:
From wood to metal, plastic, laminates and just about everything in between, the choice of materials when it comes to chests of drawers is wide. This is great news if you have a design throughout the rest of the room that you want to match.
Unlike bathrooms, kitchens or hallways, bedrooms don't usually have any special environmental conditions or an especially high level of traffic, so you can let your style run wild when it comes to choosing chests of drawers. They can get a lot of use, so harder wearing woods and metals will stand up to constant opening and closing longer than laminates, MDFs or more budget-friendly options might.
Accents:
From handles and knobs to mirrors, the finishing touches to your chest of drawers can make all the difference to the look of one of the larger pieces of furniture in your bedroom. Basic round metal knobs, long bars, rope pulls and hidden handles - there are a lot of ways to open a drawer. Consider matching pieces to existing hardware in your room for a unified look, or mix and match to create your own style. Remember in children's rooms that some handles are easier to use than others, especially for little hands.
Drawers:
The number of drawers your chest of drawers needs is only limited by how much you want to store in it. You'll often see chests of drawers with drawers of different sizes within one unit. This range of storage can be handy if you're storing many different items, like jumpers and socks, in the same unit.
As one of the larger pieces of furniture in your room, it can be satisfying to have a chest of drawers that's comfy and easy to use, fits well and looks great. When using the advice in this guide, remember all of the above before choosing your next chest of drawers.
