A materials schedule that covers flooring, wall finishes and lighting but treats wardrobes as a late add-on is where most joinery problems start. High gloss sliding door wardrobes sit at the intersection of three trades — flooring, wall finishes and built-in furniture — and they carry a reflective surface that every other finish in the room has to be reconciled with. Listing them properly in the schedule, early, is what keeps them from becoming a variation order.
Where this line item usually goes wrong
Sliding wardrobe fronts are large, flat and reflective. That combination exposes three things that a loose schedule entry hides: wall planes that are not square, floor levels that change under the track, and gloss tones that read differently against neighbouring surfaces once installed.
When the entry simply says "wardrobe, sliding doors", none of those questions get answered during procurement. The result is usually one of two outcomes: a made-to-measure unit ordered to dimensions taken off drawings rather than from site, or a finish approved from a small sample that reads wrong across a full-height panel next to a feature wall.
Both are avoidable by writing the wardrobe line with the same level of detail as the finishes around it.
What a complete schedule line should carry
For a project-grade built-in, one line in the schedule is rarely enough. Split it so that the parts with different lead times and different suppliers are tracked separately.
| Schedule field | What to specify for sliding gloss wardrobe fronts |
|---|---|
| Reference / zone | Room or unit number, plus the wall each run sits on. Sliding runs are directional — which panel overlaps which affects clearance at the door reveal. |
| System type | Sliding, hinged, corner or open. If a bedroom has both a sliding run and a mirror sliding door wardrobe in the ensuite or dressing room, list them as separate lines. |
| Front finish | Finish family and colour reference. Gloss is a family, not one product: acrylic, lacquer, melamine and veneer each reflect light differently. Specify the family you are buying from, not just "high gloss". |
| Substrate / construction | Panel type and edge treatment. Edge banding colour and profile decide how the gloss reads at the panel edge. |
| Track and hardware | Top-hung or bottom-rolling, track material, and whether the track is recessed into the floor finish or surface mounted. |
| Internal configuration | Hanging, shelving and drawer split. This drives price more than the fronts do, and it is where value engineering usually belongs. |
| Dimensions basis | "Site-verified" or "as per drawing". Made-to-measure built-ins should be site-verified after wall and floor finishes are complete. |
| Interface notes | Which trades hand over to you: skirting return, ceiling set-down, cornice termination, lighting feed into the run. |
Sequencing: what has to be fixed before the order goes in
Sliding wardrobe fronts are a fixed-dimension item. Once the panels are cut, corrections are expensive. Three site conditions need to be resolved first.
- Floor finish and threshold. Sliding doors need a level running plane. If engineered timber flooring meets tile at the wardrobe line, decide who supplies and sets the transition, and whether the track sits on the timber or the tile.
- Wall squareness. Gloss panels butt visibly. Out-of-plumb walls show as an uneven shadow line along a reflective face far more clearly than against a matte or textured finish.
- Ceiling and cornice detail. Full-height runs need a decision on whether the panel stops short of the cornice, runs behind it, or terminates in a shadow gap. That decision changes the panel height.
Put these as hold points against the wardrobe line rather than leaving them to be resolved at installation. A schedule that records "release for manufacture after floor level survey" is worth more than any amount of later expediting.
Sample approvals: judge gloss in the room, not on the bench
Gloss finishes are the easiest to approve wrongly. A 100 mm swatch under sample-room lighting tells you almost nothing about how a full-height panel will behave against a window wall.
- Approve from a full-panel or at least a large-format sample, viewed in the actual room at both day and artificial light.
- Set it against the adjacent finishes — flooring, paint, stone benchtops, high gloss cabinetry in an adjoining kitchen or laundry — because gloss tones shift against each other.
- Record the reflection behaviour, not just the colour. Note whether the front picks up the bed, the window or the corridor; that is what determines whether a bright or a darker tone works.
- Keep the signed sample on site. Finish disputes at handover are settled by the retained sample, not by a specification number.
Where two finishes are being used in one run, list both explicitly and specify which panels take which. A two tone sliding door wardrobe detail should state the split and the direction of each panel in the schedule, otherwise the installer is left to interpret it.
Grouping wardrobes with the rest of the fit-out
On villa and apartment packages, built-in joinery rarely comes from a separate supplier for a good reason: cabinetry, wardrobes, media walls and interior fixtures share substrates, edge banding, hardware suppliers and — importantly — one production window.
Ordering them together gives you consistent edge and panel colour across the bedroom and the kitchen, one coordinated shipment rather than several partial deliveries, and a single site-verification visit covering all joinery runs. Splitting them saves nothing on freight and doubles the number of dimension checks.
Where the package also carries interior fixtures such as cabinetry, wall panelling and flooring, keep the joinery lines cross-referenced in the schedule by reference number so that a change to one finish is visible against every line it touches.
Lead time and the handover chain
Built-in joinery sits late in the programme but early in the decision chain. The order cannot go in until site dimensions are verified, and site dimensions cannot be verified until wall and floor finishes are set. That dependency is the reason to schedule the wardrobe line as a long-lead item with a late release date, rather than as a short-lead item released at fit-out.
- Confirm specification and finish family early — samples take time and hold up nothing on site.
- Release for manufacture only after the floor level and wall plane are confirmed.
- Book the delivery slot against the joinery installation window, not against the general fit-out period; built-ins arriving before the room is ready get damaged or stored.
- Leave snag time before handover. Sliding fronts need adjustment on site — track alignment and panel overlap are set after installation, not in the factory.
A short pre-release checklist
- Is each wardrobe run listed by zone, with the wall and direction identified?
- Is the finish family named, with a retained signed sample referenced?
- Are panel heights fixed against a defined ceiling or cornice detail?
- Is the track interface assigned to a trade — flooring or joinery?
- Is the internal configuration priced and approved separately from the fronts?
- Is the dimension basis marked "site-verified", with the survey booked as a hold point?
- Are matching finishes cross-referenced to cabinetry and panelling lines?
If every line answers yes, the wardrobe package can be released without a variation. If any line is blank, it is cheaper to close it now than on site.
Common questions
Should sliding wardrobes be listed as one item or split into components?
Split them. Fronts, track and hardware, and internal configuration have different suppliers, lead times and approval requirements. One combined line hides which part is holding the programme.
When should site dimensions be taken for made-to-measure wardrobes?
After wall finishes and floor finishes are complete in that room, and after the ceiling set-down or cornice detail is fixed. Measuring off construction drawings gives you a tolerance stack that gloss panels will show.
Can high gloss fronts be matched to other gloss surfaces in the same dwelling?
They can, but only if they are specified as one reference and produced under the same batch. Gloss from different suppliers or different finish families will read as a mismatch even when the colour number is nominally the same.