A few years ago, we removed a door and added a small mudroom area with shoe storage and lockers. As our family grew, I realized I needed more shoe storage space. There was a small unused space as near the doorway in our mudroom that I wanted to utilize. After some research, I decided to make a Built in Shoe Cabinet. I contemplated building one myself but I decided to buy a prefab unit and modifying it to meet my needs. Here is how I created our new storage space with a Built in Shoe Cabinet!
Materials
First, I searched and searched online for a great inexpensive shoe cabinet. After reading several reviews, I decided on NOVAMAISON Narrow Shoe Storage Cabinet. The cabinet was on sale for $89 and free shipping through Amazon. It didn’t really matter what the unit looked like since I would be modifying it.
After purchasing the cabinet, I went through my wood scraps to see what I could use for this project. I generally try to asses what scrap wood I have from other projects before buying new wood. For this project, I used mainly wood scraps but I did need to purchase one piece of wood from Home Depot for my countertop I was adding to the cabinet.
List of Materials Used:
- NOVAMAISON Narrow Shoe Storage Cabinet
- Primed 2×4 Board
- 1×3 Board
- 2×4 for Back Frame
- Shoe Molding
- Caulk
- Paint
- New Cabinet Handles
Assembling the Built in Cabinet
The first step is assembling the NOVAMAISON Narrow Shoe Storage Cabinet. This cabinet was pretty easy to put together.
Once the cabinet was assembled, I checked the placement of the cabinet on the wall. I did not want to remove my baseboards for this project in case I wanted to remove the cabinet in the future. Instead of removing the baseboards, I placed 2×4 wood boards on the back wall to secure the unit to it.
Next, I attached the cabinet to the 2×4 with the mounting hardware provided with the cabinet. Then I began adding scrap trim pieces to fill in the gaps where the cabinet meets the wall.
Once the entire cabinet was framed out with scrap wood, I added a larger piece of wood to act as the countertop. I stained the counter top prior to installation to match our Bifold Pantry Doors.
Next, I painted the entire cabinet to match our kitchen cabinets.
Finally, I added some baskets I purchased from Hobby Lobby to store the kids papers from school.
