Short answer: yes, and it is what most people do. But a 120 cm wardrobe weighs 70–90 kg empty and 180–220 kg loaded, and that load lands on four feet roughly 3 × 3 cm each. That is 45–55 kg per square inch in a domestic floor that was designed for 150 kg per square metre spread out. Pads, a 2 cm airflow gap and a strict no-dragging rule are the difference between a wardrobe and a permanent dent with a story attached.
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Wooden floors are not one material. Oak planks at 20 mm, laminate at 8 mm on foam, engineered boards at 14 mm, and pine at 18 mm all behave differently under the same wardrobe, and the failure modes are different too: dents, scratches, dark moisture rings, and in the worst case a slow cupping warp around the feet.
The load maths
| Wardrobe width | Empty weight | Loaded | Per foot (4 feet) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 60 cm | 45–55 kg | 80–100 kg | 20–25 kg |
| 100 cm | 60–75 kg | 140–170 kg | 35–42 kg |
| 120 cm | 70–90 kg | 180–220 kg | 45–55 kg |
| 150 cm | 90–110 kg | 220–270 kg | 55–67 kg |
| 180 cm | 110–130 kg | 260–320 kg | 65–80 kg |
Wardrobes are mostly air, which is why the empty weight is modest and the loaded weight is not. Coats are heavy: a wool overcoat is 2–2.5 kg, and a 120 cm wardrobe holds 40–50 garments on a single rail. Shoes on the bottom add another 15–25 kg. Nobody thinks of their wardrobe as a 200 kg object until they try to move it.
What the pads actually do
Two jobs, and only one is about scratching. Felt pads 5 mm thick stop the feet grinding grit into the finish, which is the scratch problem. Rubber or cork pads 5–8 mm also spread the point load over 25–40 cm² instead of 9 cm², which is the dent problem. Self-adhesive felt is fine for a 60 cm unit; for anything 120 cm and up, use a wider rigid pad — a 60 mm square of 5 mm rubber under each foot, or better, a continuous 100 × 8 cm strip under each side rail.
Do not use foam. Foam compresses to nothing in 8–12 months and then you have a wardrobe resting on adhesive residue, which is how you get a dark ring on oak that no amount of oil will lift.
Never drag it. Ever.
A 200 kg wardrobe dragged 60 cm across a lacquered floor will leave two parallel grooves you can feel with a fingernail. The fix is embarrassingly simple: empty it, tip it 5 cm onto a folded blanket, and slide the blanket. Two people, five minutes, zero scratches. If it is a flat-pack wardrobe that has already been built, do not tip it at all — cam locks and dowels do not enjoy being levered, and the back panel will pop before the floor does.
Moisture and the 2 cm gap
Solid wood floors move 2–4 mm across a 2 m span between winter and summer. A wardrobe pushed hard against a wall traps moisture behind it, and that trapped moisture is what turns a light oak floor dark in a 120 cm-wide rectangle. Leave a 2 cm gap at the back and 1 cm at each side, and the floor can breathe. If the room has a radiator within 60 cm of the wardrobe, move one of them; a wardrobe next to a heat source dries unevenly and its doors will stop closing flush within two winters.
In a bathroom-adjacent bedroom or a basement flat, add a €8 humidity meter and keep the room at 40–55% RH. Below 35%, wood joints open and door panels crack. Above 65%, you get the dark stains and, eventually, a smell that no candle fixes.
Should it be fixed to the wall?
Yes, if it is over 100 cm tall and 50 cm deep — which is nearly all of them. Wardrobes tip forward when a loaded top shelf meets an open door, and children climb. A single 8 cm L-bracket into a stud is a 10-minute job and the only piece of furniture safety advice that has never once been over-cautious. On a wooden floor, anchor through the back panel into the wall — not into the skirting, which is 15 mm of softwood pretending to be structure.
Keep reading
More dimension guides are in the collection, and the full index is on the furnolio journal.
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