Free · instant · nothing to sign up for
Will it fit through the door?
The doorway is the easy half, and you can usually work that out yourself. The corner at the end of the hall is the one that catches people, because turning needs far more room than walking in a straight line, and the numbers are not remotely intuitive.
A 95 cm deep sofa in a generous 120 cm hallway can only turn into a doorway if it is under 119 cm long. Most three-seaters are nearly double that, and go through the door itself without touching the sides.
Measurements
Start from a typical size
The doorway
Measure the opening itself with the door open, frame edge to frame edge. Not the door leaf.
The turn
The corner defeats more sofas than the door does. Measure the hallway, and the space you are turning into.
Looking through the doorway
Through the door
It does not
short by 9 cm
Turned on its side it passes as a 85 cm x 95 cm shape. Carried turned on its side.
Try this: Unbolt the feet first. Most sofa legs come off with a spanner and give back 8 to 15 cm, which covers this gap.
Round the corner
Tight
32 cm to spare
Carried flat it is 104 cm too long for this corner, but on its end it goes.
Try this: Stand it on its end and walk it round — your 240 cm ceiling clears its 210 cm length.
Fits, but will you like it in there?
Getting it through the door is the easy question. Fit Check puts the actual piece into a photo of your actual room and tells you plainly whether to buy it or skip it. It is part of the paid plans.
How to measure so the answer is true
Measure the opening, not the door. Open the door fully and measure frame edge to frame edge. The door leaf overlaps the frame, so measuring the leaf flatters you by a couple of centimetres in exactly the situation where a couple of centimetres decides it.
Take the sofa's widest points. Arms flare. Feet stick out past the back. Trade descriptions quote the frame, and the frame is not the thing that catches on the architrave.
Find the narrowest point of the hallway. A radiator, a skirting board or a coat hook is the real width, not the plasterboard. Measure at the worst spot, not the average one.
Where this tool stops being clever. The corner maths assumes you carry the piece level, or stand it fully upright. Two people who know what they are doing will tilt it diagonally and win back more than any calculation here credits them with. So treat a no at the corner as “not by carrying it level” rather than as impossible, and treat a yes as the comfortable case rather than the limit.
The clearance rules behind this are the same ones in our designer rulebook — the walkway and access numbers designers work to, published in full.
Questions people ask
Will my sofa fit through a standard door?
A standard interior door opening is about 76 cm (30 inches) wide, and a sofa gets through it if either its depth or its height is under that, because you can turn it on its side. Most three-seat sofas are 85 to 100 cm deep and 80 to 90 cm tall, which is why so many of them go through on their side and not upright.
What measurement actually matters?
The smallest of the sofa's depth and height, measured against the door opening width. The length almost never matters at a door, because you carry a sofa lengthwise and only its cross-section passes through the frame. Length is what defeats you at the corner, not at the door.
How much room does taking the door off its hinges give me?
Usually 2 to 4 cm, because you gain the thickness of the door leaf where it sits inside the frame. It sounds trivial and it is regularly the difference between in and out, so if you are short by a couple of centimetres it is worth the ten minutes.
Why does the hallway corner beat sofas that fit through the door?
Because turning needs far more space than travelling in a straight line. A sofa that slides down a 100 cm hallway happily can need well over two metres of length clearance to swing round into a room, and the maths is unforgiving. That is why movers stand a sofa on its end at corners, which shrinks the floor space it needs at the cost of ceiling height.
Should I measure the door or the doorway?
The doorway, with the door standing open, from the inside edge of one frame to the inside edge of the other. The door leaf is wider than the gap it leaves behind, so measuring the door itself gives you a number that is optimistic in the worst possible direction.
Buying secondhand and working from someone else's photo? How to judge size from a listing photo covers the part measurements cannot tell you. Or see the rest of the free tools.