Start with your belongings, not the number of cupboards. Before choosing an apartment, assign your household's clothes, bedding, luggage and bulky everyday items to specific storage locations. Check what each space can actually hold and how you would get things out. Keep anything without a convincing home on an unassigned list.

IKEA's wardrobe guidance treats capacity as a personal decision and recommends measuring height, width and depth, allowing for obstructions and door opening.[1] The exercise below applies that planning principle to an apartment viewing. It is not a product recommendation or an Armenian dimensional standard.

1. Bring a short inventory of the difficult items

Start with belongings that are bulky, used often or awkward to put away. You do not need to catalogue every possession. Choose the groups that could change your apartment decision:

  • Coats, shoes and bags used on an ordinary day.
  • Clothes that need hanging rather than folding.
  • Spare bedding, towels and seasonal clothing.
  • Suitcases, a vacuum cleaner and other bulky household items you actually own.

Note quantities and the dimensions of the awkward pieces before the visit, using the same units throughout. Add who uses each group and how often. An occasional suitcase and the bag you collect every morning need not have the same retrieval priority.

2. Give each group a named location

On the exact apartment's plan, label possible locations: entrance cupboard, bedroom wardrobe, linen shelf or a proposed freestanding unit. Assign belongings to those locations rather than writing “plenty of storage”. Do not allocate the same shelf twice.

For example, imagine that both spare bedding and a suitcase have been assigned the space above a wardrobe. Keep both entries visible until you have checked whether they can share it. This is a hypothetical planning conflict, not a finding about any apartment.

For every proposed new cupboard, also mark the floor space it would occupy. Check that the proposed storage leaves the room usable for your intended furniture and movement. Do not count space outside the apartment as a solution in this exercise.

3. Check the interior and the retrieval action

Where access is permitted and safe, ask the viewing contact to show the installed storage. Record the usable space between its internal surfaces, not just the outside cabinet dimensions. Sketch shelves, hanging rails, drawers and fixed obstructions; mark measurements you could not obtain as unknown.

  1. Match the item to the space. Compare your awkward item's dimensions with the intended compartment and its opening. For a planned unit, request an interior layout rather than relying on a picture of closed doors.
  2. Check normal opening. Observe whether doors and drawers can open with the planned bed, bedside table or other furniture in place. If that furniture is absent, record the access check as incomplete.
  3. Rehearse retrieval. From an ordinary position on the floor, consider how the person who uses the item would reach it and take it out. Record anything that would require moving other belongings first or assistance that has not been arranged.

Do not climb, shift cupboards, remove panels or test shelf loads. A viewing note does not assess anchoring, load capacity or installation safety. Refer those questions to the relevant manufacturer or qualified installer before relying on the proposed arrangement.

4. Separate installed storage from a picture or promise

Label each location as installed in the selected apartment, shown in a sample apartment, or proposed on a plan. Ask the seller which cabinets and interior fittings, if any, are included in the selected apartment's stated finish. Keep the answer and its source with your notes; a sample display is not evidence of your unit's contents.

If finishes are incomplete, ask for the intended finished dimensions and plan revision. Retain your observations separately and arrange a later check of the completed space. A layout that has not yet been installed cannot pass an on-site retrieval check.

5. Leave with an allocation sheet and an open-items list

Use one entry per belongings group:

  • Need: items, quantity, awkward dimensions, user and frequency.
  • Location: exact room and compartment; installed, sample or proposed.
  • Space: internal dimensions, opening and obstructions; measurement source and date.
  • Use: door or drawer access, reach and what must be moved first; not checked where applicable.
  • Outstanding: unassigned items, missing dimensions, inclusion question and person to ask next.

Compare apartments using the same inventory. If a daily-use group remains unassigned, ask for a specific workable location before treating the storage question as resolved. If the only answer is a future cupboard, keep its room footprint, interior and access checks open.

Getting a wardrobe into the home is a different question. Use Dignisi's furniture delivery route checklist for that task. For storage, your next step is to send the unresolved item and location to the seller or storage planner, not to assume another cabinet will solve it.

Sources

Primary guidance checked on 9 November 2026. The inventory, allocation exercise and hypothetical example are editorial planning tools, not a reported apartment test.