How deep should a storage cabinet be?

450 mm takes most household storage including files and folded clothing. Deeper means things disappear at the back.

Does a tall cabinet need anchoring?

Yes. Anything 1800 mm tall should be fixed to the wall, and in a house with children it is not optional.

Which way should the doors swing?

Away from the main approach, so you are not walking round an open door. Decide this before ordering, not after.

Will it fit up my stairs?

Measure first. A welded 1800 by 900 mm carcass arrives as one object and the tight point is usually a turn, not a door.

Buying guides · 4 min read

How to Choose a Steel Cabinet

Depth, shelf spacing, door swing and anchoring. The practical checks before an 1800 mm cabinet arrives at your door.

A cabinet is the piece most likely to arrive and not fit, either through the door or into the plan for the room. All of that is checkable in ten minutes beforehand.

Depth, which decides whether you use it

450 mm is the useful general-purpose depth. It takes box files, folded clothing, most kitchen equipment and archive boxes without waste.

Deeper sounds better and works worse. Anything beyond about 500 mm creates a back region that becomes a place where objects go to be forgotten, because you cannot see or reach them without emptying the front.

The Steel Cabinet is 900 wide by 450 deep by 1800 mm high with three shelves. Cabinet depth and storage has the measurements for common items.

Shelf spacing, against what goes in

Three shelves in 1800 mm gives four compartments. Before ordering, measure the tallest thing that has to live in there and check it fits a compartment.

The common failure is a tall item that fits the cabinet but not any single opening, which means it lies on its side forever. Printers, large appliances, sports equipment and archive boxes are the usual culprits.

If something specific has to fit, say so when ordering. Shelf positions are among the cheapest things to change on a made-to-order piece, because they are decided before anything is cut. How to commission a piece covers which changes are easy and which are not.

Door swing, which is a floor plan question

Two doors on a 900 mm cabinet means each one swings roughly 450 mm into the room. Stand where you will stand when you open it and check that the door does not come at you, block a route, or hit something beside it.

The rule is to swing away from the main approach. If the cabinet sits in a corner, the door nearest the corner is the one that will be awkward for the rest of its life.

Also check the floor in front: 450 mm of swing plus a person is roughly a metre of clear space needed.

Anchoring, which is not optional at this height

An 1800 mm cabinet is tall enough to tip, particularly when a door is open and loaded, and particularly if a child climbs it. Fix it to the wall.

How depends on the wall. Masonry is straightforward; plasterboard means finding the studs; a dot-and-dab wall has a cavity behind it even though the structure is masonry. In every case, use the fixing rated for the wall you actually have rather than the one you wish you had.

On a sloping floor, level it as far as the feet allow and then anchor. Levelling on an uneven floor covers getting it stable first.

Access, which is the expensive mistake

A welded carcass arrives as one object. 62 kg at 1800 by 900 by 450 mm has to pass through every door and around every turn between the street and the room.

The tight point is almost never the doorway. It is a turn at the top of a stair or a landing where the diagonal matters more than the width. Measure the route rather than the door. Measuring the doorway and stairwell takes five minutes and prevents the only genuinely unrecoverable delivery problem.

If the route will not take it, a bolted carcass that arrives in parts is the alternative, and that trade is covered in welded versus bolted.

What welded construction buys

Welded 2 mm steel sheet with the seams left as they are. There are no fasteners in the carcass to work loose, which is the usual way a tall cabinet develops a lean over a decade.

A soft-close latch matters more on steel than on timber, because a steel door closing hard is loud and the impact travels through the whole carcass.

The hand-applied tagging sits under the clear coat, so what you clean and touch is the clear layer rather than the art. Clear coat over art furniture covers looking after it.

Who this cabinet is wrong for

Tight stairwells and old buildings, unless the route has been measured.
Rooms with low ceilings or a sloped ceiling where 1800 mm will not stand upright, including the tilt needed to raise it.
Walls that cannot be drilled. At this height, anchoring is a requirement rather than a preference.
Anyone needing it inside three weeks. It is made to order, three to five weeks plus transit.

Reality check

450 mm deep is the useful depth. Deeper creates a lost zone at the back.
Measure the tallest item against a single compartment, not the cabinet.
Plan the door swing against the route people walk.
Anchor it. 1800 mm is tipping height.
Measure the route, not the doorway. Turns are the tight point.

Common questions

How deep should a storage cabinet be?: 450 mm takes most household storage including files and folded clothing. Deeper means things disappear at the back.
Does a tall cabinet need anchoring?: Yes. Anything 1800 mm tall should be fixed to the wall, and in a house with children it is not optional.
Which way should the doors swing?: Away from the main approach, so you are not walking round an open door. Decide this before ordering, not after.
Will it fit up my stairs?: Measure first. A welded 1800 by 900 mm carcass arrives as one object and the tight point is usually a turn, not a door.