For all those extra clothes (Argos Single Cream Wardrobe with Shelf)

Member Name: aylawarner

Product:	Argos Single Cream Wardrobe with Shelf
Date:	03/11/09 (64 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Lightweight, cheap, fairly easy to put together, looks good

Disadvantages: Thin wood so could break easily, can't hold heavy items

My hubby, Alex, is, surprisingly enough, the one with all the clothes in our house. We each have our own individual wardrobe which all my clothes fit perfectly into whereas Alex's wardrobe is always spilling with them. The doors never seem to be able to close as there is so much inside and he can't even manage to see what's in there as none of the hangers have even a millimetre of space to move. This has resulted in his clothes being either chucked on top of the wardrobe or just left downstairs hanging over the back of chairs and making either the bedroom or dining room look like a tip.

We didn't really have much more room for another full wardrobe in our bedroom and plus the prices in the same set we already have seem to have raced up since we originally bought them, so I eventually agreed to get a smaller and more simple wardrobe to store his clothes in for the time being.

We decided on this single wardrobe from Argos which retails at £39.99 but we picked it up in the sale for £29.99.

It is all made of pine wood and is basically just the frame of a wardrobe with 4 long poles standing upwards. There are two shelves inside - one at the bottom for things like shoes and towels, and one at the top for lightweight items - which are made of around 13 slats of wood to rest things on. Under the top shelf is a single hanging rail on which to hang all your clothes. To make this then look more presentable, there is a pale natural cream polycotton canvas cover which fits all the way over the entire wooden structure and fits under the legs at the bottom of the wardrobe to keep it in place. To get into the wardrobe, the front section of the canvas rolls up and can be secured into place with two small ribbons going through holes at the top part of the canvas.

The wardrobe is self-assembly and it's easy enough to put together. It took Alex and I about an hour to put it all up, but it would probably take most people less time than this as Alex has a tendency of getting really stressed when doing even the most simple of DIY tasks and ends up shouting and swearing at me - anything to make me do the DIY by myself next time! There are quite a lot of nails that need screwing in but they're all only small nails and these were all easy enough to do. You don't even need a screwdriver, using the little L shaped thingy (don't know what it's called!) provided is good enough.

This isn't the best of wardrobes and certainly isn't great for a long-term permanent one. The pine wood is all quite flimsy and we managed to break 2 parts of the wardrobe before we'd even finished putting it together! We dropped one of the slats from the top shelf and it fell onto the bottom shelf, knocking one of the bottom slats out. And one of the nails somehow managed to just break away the wood in the hole rather than fitting in as it should. This meant that the glue had to come out and a couple of bits needed to be glued to stay together properly. The hanging rail isn't the most sturdy of things and I wouldn't advise on hanging any heavy items on it as it would probably just collapse.

The measurements of this are 175cm in height, 87cm width, and 52cm depth which makes it a perfect wardrobe for one person or just for extra bits and bobs to go into and I think it would also make a good wardrobe for children (as long as they don't stand on the bottom shelf).

It's not the most sophisticated of bedroom furniture but it actually looks a lot nicer than I thought it would once up and finished. It can be a bit of a pain to keep rolling the canvas door up and down the whole time so we simply leave it down and just push it aside whenever we need to get in there. Overall, this isn't great as a permanent thing, but as a temporary and cheap place to put some clothes, this is the perfect wardrobe. It's very lightweight and holds up well and the natural coloured canvas makes it look very nice.

Summary: No more clothes hanging out the wardrobe or piling up on top of it!