Portable Closet Guide

Are you looking for a portable wood closet? I can see from my search logs that many people end up on this site looking for such an item. The problem is there’s not many closets made of wood that can be considered portable. Instead, you generally only find portable metal closets because using a light metal keeps the unit lightweight, and thus easily portable, and yet sturdy and strong at the same time.

So what about the rest of us looking for portable wooden closets?

In this article I will look at some solutions for such an item, with an emphasis on keeping it wooden yet at the same time, relatively portable. This gets us into the territory of the armoire, which originally meant any kind of wooden storage cabinet, and now usually refers to wooden wardrobe closets.

Unfortunately, for someone looking for a portable wooden closet with wheels, you’ll probably have to settle for having to pick it up. None of these below have wheels.

The Mountain Lodge Ebony Door Chest ($300)

Here we have a very elegant looking lightweight wooden storage unit that could easily be used a portable wooden closet. It’s got 2 drawers and 2 shelves and an ebony finish. This wooden armoire would work great in any guest room for storing personal items. By South Shore. It’s hard to tell from the photo but this unit stands approximately 4 feet tall. The upper area could be affixed with a rod and have enough space to hang shirts and pants, and the drawers below would work good for socks and underwear.

Atlantic Furniture Manhattan Two Drawer Armoire ($700)

This is a beautful solid hardwood two drawer armoire. Portable? Well, it’s not got wheels, but it’s going to be relatively light weight compared to antique armoire furniture and other heavier armoires. This is the problem hinted at in the introduction – that wood makes the closet heavy, and thus not very portable! But this is close. Here we have a unit with beaded inserts, grooved slide inserts, crown moldings, and french dovetails. There’s two drawers near the bottom and a two door set up at the top, which opens into an adjustable shelf, and a closet rod. It’s also set up to place a TV inside if you wish, which would probably push this into “somewhat portable” to “definitely not portable” once your TV is inside!

Mission Style Light Cherry 3 Door Wardrobe Armoire ($700)

Here we have another wood closet in the style of the armoire. Is it portable? For a solid wood design, it’s as portable as you can get!

I’m a big fan of the design on this unit. Take a close look at the photo here and you can see there’s 2 drawers in the bottom right and then 3 doors to open into two separate shelving areas for hanging clothes. What’s cool about this is that the one of the left is slightly longer than the one on the right, taking up the entire height of the unit. At the bottom of this shelf there’s a small area for shoes (as featured) or any other type of small closet item.

This unit is not something you’d want to be moving around like a real portable closet, but for a wooden unit, it’s light weight enough to move as needed.

Black 3 Door Wardrobe Closet

Featured here is another furniture item that’s technically an armoire and not a portable closet. But weighing in under 100 pounds makes this sort of portable, right? Hmmm…For that $200 price tag you get a really solid looking black armoire, with 3 drawers at the bottom and the upper half dedicated to a hanging wardrobe or a TV if you’d prefer. If you are researching a wooden portable closet and are budget conscious, this $200 unit is a pretty good deal. Available at Target.

Portable Wood Storage Cube

Now we are really cheating and getting into different types of storage items, but this would be of interest to many people looking for a wooden portable storage closet. These cost only $20 from Target and are easily moved about the house. They give you two shelves for storage, and of course room on top for placing some simple items like a lamp or some books. Simple, easy, and cheap. Measures 1 foot by 1 foot.

In looking at all the different options related to closet storage, one comes across many similar terms used to describe both similar and dissimilar items. One area of confusion comes across in the terms describing a portable closet, like the kind discussed on this site, and then what’s formally known as an armoire, or wardrobe closet.

A wardrobe closet is made as very nice, solid items, just as much a piece of furniture with aesthic appeal as they are an item with utiliarian purpose i.e. storing clothes! This is in obvious contrast to the portable closets discussed at Portable Closet Guide, which are light weight, mobile items, and certainly not a big piece of wooden furniture like most antiques armoire furniture can rightly be described as.

So what does it mean when an item for sale is described as “portable wardrobe closet“? Usually, it’s much more of a portable closet than a wardrobe closet. The differentiation can be seen starting with the materials it’s made out of. If it’s solid wood, it gets a few points on the armoire scorecard, but if it’s anything else, it’s more likely to fall in the portable closet family. I think the real kicker though is to look for what makes – it doesn’t make it – actually portable. A solid wood closet described as portable wardrobe closet isn’t very portable if it’s got no wheels, no handles, and weighs 40 or 50 pounds, even if it does stand just about 3 feet high. But that’s probably as close as we can get to a middle ground between the two, and for some people, that’s just the item they were looking for.

This really gets into what it is people need the closet for. If the function needs to be something more useful – i.e. it holds clothes but doesn’t look pretty, or at least, jaw dropping – than a portable closet is a better solution. If the function is to have a solid wooden closet that looks great and holds clothes, a wardrobe closet is the solution.