Built-Ins Outta Built-Ins | DIY

Remember our twins?  I don't write too much about how our kids are aging but let me tell you, these twins of ours are aging.  They're TWEENS!  I know, right?!  Nuts.  Anyway, with growing up comes the accumulation of stuff - and I would argue that that is even more so the case with girls.  More clothes, crafts galore, collectibles, books, bags, jewelry, and most recently, make up (just mascara and blush on limited occasions but good grief time, slow down).  All of that is to say, these tween twins were running out of places to put their stuff.  Their room isn't huge though and their closet nothing to write home about but they did have an empty wall that had potential written all over it (and a mess all around it too).

(Painted arches tutorial here.)

So... 

We did NOT need another project this past summer but for several weeks, I kept a side eye out on Facebook Marketplace for a shelving unit/cabinets/whatever I could find that would hold all of their accumulating stuff.  

Then one day, this popped up:

It certainly looked like it fit the bill and it was listed by a good friend who only lived five minutes away.  Bingo.  

According to the measurements, it was the perfect height and narrow depth that meant it wouldn't take up too much space and stick too far out into their already smallish room.  The only problem was that it was just a smidge too wide because, at seven feet, the end landed right on top of the light switch to the closet.

  

It was kind of a big deal but also not.  Really it just meant that this project just got a little bigger...you know, the project that we already didn't have time for.  *le sigh*  Our options were to create a small notch in the back of the shelf to accommodate the switch (hill billy-esque?) or just move the switch altogether into the inside of the closet.

We chose the slightly more involved task of moving the switch - remove switch, replace drywall with small piece of drywall cut from inside the closet, patch, mud, sand, mud, sand, prime, paint, done.  

Looking at that spot now, you'd never know the switch was ever on this side of the wall.

Also, see that medium beige-y paint swatch in the upper right?  It took me much hemming and hawing, but that's the color all of our interior doors will be going.

As far as moving the closet light switch inside, we were able to do that easily without having to take off a large chunk of drywall to expose a stud by using an "old work" junction box*.  Trace, cut drywall, place junction box, pull wiring through, wire switch, place cover, done.  (Here's a video showing how easy this is to do and how much simpler it makes the process of moving electrical around in existing drywall.)

With the electrical done, it was back to the shelving unit which was taking up residence in our car port outside.  We thought it would be easiest to work on getting the base in first but before we could even move it inside, we had to figure out what we were going to do with the middle section that had once had a vent running through it.

Since the whole point of getting this thing up into the girls room was to create more storage, obviously having an entire section of cabinetry unusable wasn't going to do.  So, using our circular saw, Anthony cut out a large hole using the same outside frame measurements as the neighboring cabinets onto which we could install two more doors to make a working cabinet.

Once that messy work was done, we were able to move the entire base inside and secure it to studs in the wall.

My plan for covering that hole wasn't 100% concrete at this point - would we have to build doors from scratch?  That was certainly the most ideal option but also the most daunting since we've never built cabinet doors before.  Maybe go the small curtain route instead?  Open shelving?

There were options and, let me just tell you that this rarely happens, but that week I made a quick trip to our local Habitat for Humanity ReStore and happened to find they had just received a donation of used cabinet doors that were almost an identical match to the doors on this cabinet base.  The only problem was that there weren't any that were exactly the right size I needed (no shocker there) but I did find a couple that, if turned 90 degrees, were the right height but too wide - though wide enough that we could just cut them into two.  Oh, and they were only five bucks each.  SOLD. 

They also had some decorative moulding on them but that was far from a deal-breaker.  Off came the moulding, in were filled the old hardware and hinge holes, and then the door was treated like the rest of them as far as a light sanding and painting went.

Now you'd never know they hadn't been there the whole time.

At this point, we were almost done with the base.  The only other thing we did was replace the existing, rounded trim along the top edge with something a little less, well, round.  Because of how the base was built in to my friend's wall, there was a section of that trim missing anyway so we opted to just replace the entire edge instead of trying to find trim that matched the existing edge.

Finally, we could move on to putting on the top shelves.  The original unit as a whole was about 1.5 inches too tall to fit perfectly so Anthony cut just that much off of the bottom of each vertical rail of the shelf.  It was straightforward but also not - each vertical side of the shelf had two strips of metal rails where shelf supports went that had to be cut with an angle grinder before the plywood could be cut with a regular circular saw.  Once cut though, the shelf was ready to be placed on top of the base.

To prep the wall for install, we had to cut out crown moulding.  Before we moved into this house, the first thing we did was remove the popcorn from the ceilings so it was crazy to see that texture unveiled underneath the crown.  Look at the difference between dingy and fresh + clean white!

Our plan was to just reinstall the crown moulding along the top edge of the shelf but we didn't realize that that ceiling vent was in the way.  Moving a light switch is one thing, moving an air vent another so instead of crown moulding, we ran square dowels that were the same measurement wide as the vertical front face of the crown along the ceiling.

  

That gap between the ceiling and trim wasn't there when we put the final stamp on this project last summer.  But with the heat running this winter, there are always some gaps that appear in our crown moulding.  It seems we haven't yet found that perfect caulk that doesn't actually shrink along with the changes of seasons...recs welcome!

Next up, paint!  The entire unit had been previously painted with an oil-based paint, so we had to lightly sand (the existing finish was pretty worn so it really didn't take much to dull it some more) and prime with oil-based primer.

The shelves and doors I painted outside laid out on our long ladder atop a few sawhorses.

Once all of the parts were painted, it was time to put the doors back on.  I wish I could type that I just drilled the new hinges (which were the exact same ones as the old, just a fresh white) back into their spots, reinstalled the doors, and things were peachy but I knew there would have to be some finagling at this point because the old doors were slightly crooked and one set didn't even close right.  In the end, it took two people - one to hold the door in place and one to measure, mark, and drill.  Also in the end, I can confidently say that installing cabinet doors is not my favorite thing to do.  And I apologize for making this sound so fun.  So inspiring, right?

So, after losing half my marbles during the door hanging process, I was lucky the next thing up was fun - wallpapering the wall behind the shelves.  I found a roll of this wallpaper at Dirt Cheap (which recently declared BANKRUPTCY and is shutting down...cried me a river already) for $7 so I just grabbed one more roll (off Amazon Warehouse for $22) and wallpapered before the shelves went up.

I know there are lots of opinions about peel and stick wallpaper but personally, I love it, especially for little areas like the backs of bookcases or inside drawers.  It's not the easiest to work with (neither is traditional wallpaper though) but the ease of taking it down and changing it up makes it superior for lots of applications.

One other thing I did to the built-in that's worth mentioning was painting the toe kick under the cabinet and adding faux legs.

I mixed a couple of paint samples I had laying around to get a color similar to the carpet and used some scrap wood so this didn't cost a penny but  made a big difference aesthetically.

Like I said, this was a J-O-B - one that we didn't really have time for last summer and one we didn't think would be so intense but now that it's done, we're glad is DONE and we're glad we took the time to do.  And so are the girls...and all of their stuff.

Sources

tool set* - We bought this tool set several years ago and for most projects we've tackled, it's had every tool we've needed to get a job done, including this built-in project.  Highly recommend.  (Psst...it's $100 off right now!)
primer*
paint - experience in watching latex paint on cabinets vs. "cabinet" paint on cabinets wear over time has made me a believer in using dedicated cabinet paint but I haven't found a tried-and-true brand that's held up better than any others.  This time around, I used Valspar (color-matched to Sherwin-Williams Pure White) and it still looks great.  However, as is the case much of the time with white paint, I had to paint three coats.  T-e-d-i-o-u-s.
hinges
cabinet knobs*
wallpaper
curtains* - the fabric these curtains are made from isn't the greatest but they're pretty and cheap, especially if you can find a pair on Warehouse like I did (I paid just over $40 for all four panels).  I did add grommets to the top (tutorial here) too because I like how it makes them fall and easier for kids tweens to open.
rug  - hand me down but dyed (tutorial here)

As far as how much we spent from start to finish, we paid $200 for the built-in shelves and just under $100 on everything we needed to customize the whole thing for our girls room, making our grand total about $300.  Had we built this from scratch using new materials all around, from the solid wood shelves to the cabinets below, our cost would have swelled to close to $1000 so I think we can agree, this was a win.

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And that's that.  But, if you have questions or need more explanation about a certain part of this project, leave a comment below or email us at beaninlove@gmail.com  I'm a big fan of repurposing used things for lots of reasons when it can work but I know that sometimes it comes with conundrums of it's own so if we can make that process easier for someone else, we're here for it!

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*These links are affiliate links which means that, if you click over and/or make a purchase through the link, we may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.  All of these links will lead you to things we actually paid for or that are similar to the item we paid for in case ours is thrifted/sold out/secondhand.  This extra moolah helps us with the costs of running the blog and might help fund our next idea.  Thank you for your support and for fueling our love to share all things DIY!