Ikea custom wardrobe, or what to do when PAX is the wrong size
Summary: An IKEA custom wardrobe usually means PAX planning, PAX hacks, or a made-to-measure flat-pack alternative. PAX is useful, but if the wall sits between standard widths, the real question is whether you want filler panels or panels cut to the room.
The bedroom wall in my old flat was 1.84 m wide. Floor to ceiling, about 2.55 m, with a slight slope on the left where the previous owner had patched a leak. PAX comes in 1, 1.5, and 2 m widths. I stood in the IKEA showroom for forty minutes trying to make 1.5 m plus a filler panel work, then 2 m minus a saw, then two 1 m units with a 16 cm gap between them that the staff member kept calling "a feature wall." I went home, opened a beer, and started looking up what an "ikea custom wardrobe" actually is, because the phrase clearly means something to enough people that 3,800 of them search it every month.
It turns out it means three different things. None of them are quite what you'd hope.
What people actually mean when they search this
The first group are looking for IKEA's own service. PAX has a planner, you can pick widths and depths, you can configure interiors. That's "custom" in the sense that you're choosing from a menu. It is not made to measure. The widths are the widths. If your wall is 1.84 m, you're picking 1.5 m with a 34 cm filler, full stop.
The second group are after IKEA hacks. There are dozens of blogs and a handful of small services in Berlin, London, and Amsterdam that will sell you custom side panels, custom doors, or custom plinths to make a PAX look built-in. These work. They also assume you're happy to start from a PAX carcass and decorate around it. You're paying for a frame you didn't really need plus the cosmetic bits to hide it.
The third group, and this is the one that's grown the most in the last two or three years, are people who want a wardrobe that fits like a built-in but ships flat like an IKEA. No carpenter. No six-week wait. Boards cut to the actual wall, cam locks, a stack of birch on a pallet at the front door. That's the gap.
The numbers, roughly
A made-to-measure carpenter quote in NL or the UK for a single-wall wardrobe (1.8 to 2 m wide, floor to ceiling, two doors, a hanging rail, four drawers) is somewhere between 3,200 and 4,800 euros, plus VAT, plus six to nine weeks. I've called five carpenters in Amsterdam and Utrecht over the years and the spread is real. The cheapest was a guy who did kitchens during the day and wardrobes on Saturdays. The most expensive included three site visits and a CAD drawing.
A PAX setup for the same wall, with custom doors from a hack supplier, comes out around 1,400 to 2,200 euros. Faster, six weeks-ish if the doors are bespoke. Still leaves the filler panel problem if your wall isn't a PAX width.
A made-to-measure flatpack option, where the panels are cut to your exact dimensions and shipped pre-drilled, sits between the two. I last paid roughly 1,900 euros for a 1.84 m wide, 2.52 m tall unit in 18 mm white melamine MDF with two soft-close doors and birch ply drawer boxes. Eight days from order to delivery.
The measurements that actually matter
Most people measure the wall once at chest height and call it done. That's how you end up with a wardrobe that won't slide into place because the floor bows by 8 mm in the middle. Three measurements minimum, top, middle, bottom. Then both diagonals to check whether the wall is square to the floor. Then the ceiling height at both ends, because plaster dips. In my flat the difference between left and right ceiling height was 14 mm over 1.84 m of wall, which is enough to make a flush-fit top scribe look bad if you ignore it.
The other thing nobody tells you: skirting boards. An 11 cm Victorian skirting eats your bottom corner unless the wardrobe has a notched plinth or you're willing to take the skirting off. Most flatpack-to-measure services will notch the plinth if you tell them the skirting depth and height. If you don't tell them, they won't.
Depth is the easy one. 58 to 60 cm gives you a hanger sitting square. 50 cm forces hangers to turn sideways, which works but halves your usable rail length. Anything under 45 cm is a shelf with a door, not a wardrobe.
Door types and the bit that goes wrong
Sliding doors are quieter, take no swing room, and cost more. They also need a top track that's true to within about 2 mm over the full width or they bind. Hinged doors are cheaper, louder, eat 60 cm of clear floor, and forgive a wonky wall.
For a 1.84 m wide opening, two hinged doors at 92 cm each work. Three at roughly 61 cm each work better if you want narrower swing arcs in a tight bedroom. Sliding doors over 1.84 m want two leaves of 92 cm, with a 3 cm overlap, which means you can only ever access half the wardrobe at a time. That last bit catches everyone out.
Cam locks versus dowels: cam locks go in with a coin and come apart cleanly if you ever move. Dowel-and-glue is stronger but it's a one-shot assembly. For a flat I knew I'd leave in three years, cam locks every time.
Materials, briefly
18 mm white melamine MDF is the IKEA standard, fine for most internal panels, not great if it ever gets damp. 18 mm birch ply is heavier, prettier on the edges, more forgiving of off-square cuts, and adds maybe 25 percent to the bill of materials. 22 mm is overkill for a wardrobe unless you're running shelves over 90 cm wide for heavy storage. Solid wood doors look great and warp if your bedroom humidity swings, which it does in any flat with old radiators and a kitchen on the same floor.
Edges matter. A 2 mm ABS edge band on melamine is the difference between a wardrobe that looks bought and one that looks made. Pre-banded panels save you a weekend with an iron and a trim block.
If your wall is somewhere between 1.5 and 2 m and you don't want a filler panel, that's the gap knuslabs.com was built to fill.
If you're planning the same kind of project, start with flat-pack wardrobe concepts for alcoves or compare it with IKEA Pax alternative for exact-fit wardrobes. For adjacent planning detail, read Kallax alternative, when the 1.47 m grid stops fitting your room and What Sharps wardrobes actually cost (and why).