DIY Office Built Ins

This post is not sponsored and I am making no money from it.

This took me a little while to write, since the salon go super busy with the Holiday season. So better late than never.

When we bought this house last November I knew I wanted the office to have built ins. Our last house we didn’t do it and I regretted it. So Pinterest I went for inspiration.

Our office is a 10x10, so its not too big but a good enough size for a decent sized built in, another thing is I didn’t want our built ins to have a desk at them, I felt like you would be looking at a wall the whole time, so I needed them to be on a thinner side. We needed a room for a desk, I wanted it to feel open when working.

I did a few mood boards and posted some polls Instagram for help. I had to order Brandon’s desk in the summer to ensure it would be here by fall. I ordered the Pottery Barn writing desk.

This is how we did our built ins, you can build everything from scratch but we didn’t. We decided to go with unfinished top cabinets from Lowe’s. We went with 3- 36 inch cabinets. We first measured the wall which was around 93 inches then looked up stock cabinet sizes and picked what would fit best. Here is the cabinets we used. Cabinets

Here is my mood board. I linked everything in Like.it.to.know.it.

Step 1: After determining the cabinets we needed. we built a stand or a base for the cabinets, we did want them to be taller and sturdy since the shelving would be heavy. I didn’t get a picture of the base, I was at working while he did this part. But he used 1x4 boards and made a box and then he screwed it into studs.

Step 2: After getting placement of the cabinets, We then put in filler pieces, A very important part, Make sure your cabinets do not go all the way to the wall, they will need room to open. (We have made that mistake before.) Where you see the gaps is where filler pieces go. We used 1x4 primed boards for this. Measure the space and rip the board, then screw it in.

Make sure everything is leveled and secured before starting next steps.

Step 3: The top piece. There are a few ways to go about it. You can get a custom piece built, buy pre made butcher block counters and cut them to sizing, or you can make some out of wood like the poplar wood we used. The wood is thinner and very good for shelves but we wanted cheap and fast so we nailed 2 pieces of the poplar wood together. It is found at Lowe’s.

This is where we add the 2 pieces of wood to create the top piece, we will use a trim lattice piece for the front to make it look like one.

Step 4: Next thing is to build the shelving, once again we used the 1x12 poplar wood from Lowe’s. Here is the exact shelving wood we used. This is also the wood we used for the top piece. Shelving Wood

We measured from the top of the counter to the ceiling but left room for crown moulding. So we cut 4 pieces of that measurement, which was 60 something inches for ours. Then I decided how many shelves I wanted and for me I thought 4 looked best, so we then did a little math to see what space was between each one then cut them accordingly. The we made a open box, basically the top part, and the 2 sides, screwing that all in, then we screwed all the selves into it. The width of the shelves is whatever you like, I just decided based on where i wanted the shelf to sit on top.

Made the box for the shelves, then we measured width then cut, then placed box back down and screwed in the wood for shelves.

We then decided here to use a backing to make it more secure. Here is what we used. Self backing We cut it to sized then used small nails to put it in. Then we attached to to the wall. I didn’t get pictures of this but use a couple of 1x2s and put them into the studs on the side of the cabinets then screw the cabinets in the 1x2s, they will not go anywhere after doing this.

At this point everything is secure to the wall. Make sure, you don’t want it to fall down. Also, fill in the wall gaps with wood.

Step 5: We then did vertical shiplap in between. Here is the shiplap we used. Shiplap

Step 6: We then used lattices pieces to trim out the cabinets, fill gaps at the shiplap, (you can see how off the wall is), and then we need the counter piece to look like one. This is what we used for this part. Use a nail gun and smaller nails to attach these pieces. Trim lattice

Step 7: My least favorite part, Caulking, just caulk every gap, make sure you get a paintable one. Then sand it all, dont go crazy but just get a few sanding blocks and make sure everything is smooth. When this all dries we prepped for painting. We decided to spray it, so take off everything. We went went Soot by Benjamin Moore, I wanted a more dark moody black color, he wanted a blue so we settled on Soot. Soot by BM Paint it all, then let it dry.

Tap off everything with plastic if you spray.

After is dries, we waited a week, reattach doors and hardware.

Now its all finished. Hope this helped, really a very easy project, just lots of steps. We haven’t finished the crown moulding yet, we got the wrong one, then life got way too busy plus we both got the dreaded virus. Hopefully we will finish that part soon. I will update it when we do.

xoxo,

Andrea

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