Drawer organising advice almost always starts with a method: file fold everything, buy the dividers, label the boxes. It skips the step that decides whether any of it will work, which is measuring the inside of the drawer.
Two chests of drawers can be the same 140 x 45 x 85cm on the outside and differ by more than half in the space inside. In this catalogue the deepest drawer interior is 24.6cm and the shallowest is 16cm, and that gap is the difference between file folding working perfectly and not working at all.
Key Takeaways
- Measure the drawer interior before buying anything. Outside dimensions tell you nothing useful.
- Chest drawer interiors here run 59cm to 63.1cm wide and 16cm to 24.6cm deep.
- File folding needs about 20cm of interior depth. Below that, stack instead and stop fighting it.
- Tallboys give you two narrow drawers on top for small items, which chests do not.
- Heaviest in the bottom drawer, always. It is an organising rule and a safety rule at the same time.
The Measurements That Actually Vary
Every Cedora six drawer chest is 140 x 45 x 85cm on the outside, and every one of them has six identical drawers. What changes is what is inside them.
| Chest | Drawer interior | Depth |
|---|---|---|
| Liverpool | 63.1 x 36.9cm | 24.6cm, the deepest |
| Manchester | 59 x 37cm | 20.6cm |
| Bristol | 62.5 x 37cm | 20.3cm |
| London | 59 x 38.3cm | 19.1cm |
| Newcastle | 62.35 x 37.8cm | 16cm, the shallowest |
Fifty four per cent more depth in a Liverpool drawer than a Newcastle one, at exactly the same external size. That is not a defect, it is where the material went: the ranges with heavier mouldings and shaped fronts spend timber on the outside of the box. We put the full volume comparison in five chests, one size, 52 per cent difference.
Tallboys split differently again: two narrow drawers across the top, three full width below.
| Tallboy | Top drawers | Lower drawers |
|---|---|---|
| Liverpool | 43.05 x 36.9 x 21cm | 86.4 x 36.9 x 22.5cm |
| Bristol | 42.5 x 37 x 20.8cm | 87.5 x 37 x 20.8cm |
| Newcastle | 42.3 x 37.8 x 18.5cm | 87.6 x 37.8 x 18.5cm |
| London | 39 x 38.3 x 22.5cm | 80.5 x 38.3 x 22.5cm |
| Manchester | 38 x 37 x 19.9cm | 81.5 x 37 x 22.5cm |
Manchester Pine 6 Drawer Chest
File Folding Needs 20cm, and Not Every Drawer Has It
File folding means folding a garment so it stands on its edge rather than lying flat, and it is the single biggest improvement you can make to a drawer, because you can see everything at once and taking one item out does not disturb the rest.
It needs vertical room. A folded t-shirt standing on edge is roughly 20cm to 24cm tall, a folded jumper more. So:
- 24.6cm interior, as in the Liverpool chest, files anything including jumpers with room to spare
- 20cm to 22.5cm, as in the Manchester, Bristol and most tallboy drawers, files t-shirts and shirts comfortably and struggles with bulky knits
- 16cm to 19cm, as in the Newcastle chest and the Newcastle tallboy, does not file adult tops at all
If your drawers are in that last band, stop trying. A shallow drawer is better used as a single flat layer of one category, which is what it is actually good at: underwear, socks, tea towels, folded shirts two deep. Fighting the geometry produces a drawer that will not close.
Dividers: Measure the Interior, Not the Front
The most common wasted purchase in drawer organising is a set of dividers bought against the external width of the piece. A 140cm chest has a 59cm to 63cm drawer interior, and a 100cm tallboy has a 38cm to 43cm top drawer.
Two rules save the money:
Measure width, depth and height, and take the smallest of each. Drawer sides taper very slightly and runners intrude. Measure at the narrowest point and buy to that.
Leave headroom. An organiser filled to the top of its own sides will catch on the drawer above every time. Buy trays no taller than about 60 per cent of the interior depth: if the interior is 20cm, that means trays no taller than 12cm, filled to 10cm.
For the two narrow drawers on a tallboy, at 38cm to 43cm wide, small trays in two rows front to back work better than one long divider, because the drawer is 37cm to 38cm deep and a single tray that far back is hard to reach into.
Shop Cedora Chests of Drawers
Liverpool Pine 6 Drawer Chest - Natural
Solid Pine Frame with Oak Veneer
Oak Top & Solid Pine Structure
Pre-order: ETA 30 Oct 2026
Solid Pine Structure
Liverpool Pine 6 Drawer Chest - Black
Solid Pine Frame with Oak Veneer
Newcastle Acacia 6 Drawer Chest
Solid Pine & Acacia Structure
Manchester Pine 6 Drawer Chest
Solid Pine Structure
What Goes Where, Top to Bottom
The order is decided by weight first and frequency second, in that order, because the weight rule is also the safety rule.
Bottom drawer: the heavy things. Jeans, jumpers, folded towels, anything dense. Weight low in the piece keeps the centre of gravity inside the footprint, which is what stops a loaded chest tipping when an upper drawer is open. There is more on that in how to anchor furniture to the wall.
Middle drawers: the daily things. The clothing you reach for without thinking. Middle drawers are at the easiest height to see into and reach.
Top drawers: the small things. On a chest, all six drawers are the same, so the top pair becomes small items by convention. On a tallboy the two narrow top drawers are actually built for it, at 38cm to 43cm wide, and that split is the real advantage a tallboy has over a chest. We compared the two properly in how much a tallboy holds compared to a chest.
Five Things That Keep It Organised After Week Two
- One category per drawer. The moment a drawer holds two unrelated things it becomes a place to put anything.
- Leave a quarter of each drawer empty. A full drawer has nowhere for the laundry to go on a Sunday, so the laundry ends up on the tallboy instead.
- Do not label the outside. Label the trays inside if you must. Labels on drawer fronts look like a storeroom.
- Empty one drawer completely, twice a year. Not all six. One drawer takes ten minutes and is the only version of this anyone actually does.
- Keep the surface clear. A chest top that collects things is a sign the drawers are full, not a separate problem. What belongs on the surface is covered in how to style a chest of drawers.
Newcastle Acacia 6 Drawer Chest
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you organise a chest of drawers?
Measure the drawer interior first, then decide the method. If the interior is about 20cm deep or more, file fold so garments stand on edge. If it is shallower, use a single flat layer of one category per drawer. Heaviest items in the bottom drawer, daily items in the middle, small items on top.
How deep are chest of drawers drawers?
In this catalogue they run from 16cm on the Newcastle to 24.6cm on the Liverpool, all inside the same 140 x 45 x 85cm external size. Width runs 59cm to 63.1cm. That 54 per cent spread in depth is why measuring matters more than any method.
Does file folding work in every drawer?
No. A folded t-shirt standing on edge is roughly 20cm to 24cm tall, so it needs about 20cm of interior depth. A 16cm drawer will not take filed adult tops and is better used as a single flat layer.
How do you choose drawer dividers?
Measure the interior width, depth and height at the narrowest point, not the outside of the furniture. Buy trays no taller than about 60 per cent of the interior depth so nothing catches on the drawer above.
What should go in the bottom drawer?
The heaviest items: jeans, jumpers, towels. It keeps the centre of gravity low in the piece, which is what stops a chest or tallboy tipping forward when an upper drawer is open and loaded.
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