Let me tell you why I decided to build cabinets on my own! In our house, storage space is a premium, it seems like I’m constantly clearing out the worn and outgrown to make room for the new or just trying to maintain a semblance of organization so our treasures can be easily found. Several years ago, we moved our washer and dryer from the main floor to the second floor, where all the bedrooms are located. That was a huge game changer!
So, I’ve had in the back of my mind for a while that I should get some cabinets above my washer/dryer in its new location, but it just didn’t make it to the top of my list until recently. One challenge with my set up is that my washer and dryer are tall and huge, so my cabinets needed to deeper than usual. I called around to some local cabinet builders for quotes, but most weren’t interested in my “little” project and the quote I did received was $1,000.
Being the frugal handy woman that I am I thought well, maybe that’s something I could do myself and so that’s what I did, I decided to build cabinets for my wall.
The Plans
If you’ve never heard of Ana White, she is someone you’ll want to follow. Her carpentry skill and tutorial are amazeballs!! I used her Wall Kitchen Cabinet Basic Carcass Plan found here: https://www.ana-white.com/woodworking-projects/wall-kitchen-cabinet-basic-carcass-plan
When it came time for me to purchase my materials, I utilized the cutting services at Home Depot. I can’t fit a full-sized piece of plywood in my car, nor could I manage loading it, even if it did fit. So I brought my cutting map with me and I already figured out exactly where I wanted to make the cuts.
We have a few tips for getting your wood cut, see our post on that here.
When following these tips, my experiences have been great, I’ve even had the employees help find the best wood or avoid sheets of plywood that have imperfections.
I followed Ana’s plans with a few slight modifications. I decided to make my cabinets 18” deep instead of the standard 12” deep. Also, since I was adding extra weight, I decided to add 2 cleats, one below the top of the cabinet and one below one of the shelves.
The Doors
For the doors, I decided to hit the easy button, I ordered my doors from www.fastdoors.com. For me, this was worth the investment since they look more finished than what I can currently make. They had so many styles to choose from and the quality was perfect. They even drilled the holes for my hinges. Carefully follow and double check the cabinet door website’s guide for measuring your door sizes. Ana’s cabinets are designed for the door to have ½’ overlap of the opening on all sides.
The Finished Project – Ta Da!!
I painted everything using our cabinet painting tutorial, added crown molding, these self-closing hinges and some pretty hardware (see our tutorial for adding hardware here) to finish things off. I’m so happy with how my project turned out and instead of paying $1000 for this project, I knocked it out for about $350 and learned some new skills along the way.
If you’d like to Pin this project the image below would work great for Pinterest!
