Have you ever looked at a spot in your home and just knew it was meant to be something amazing? I have the habit of seeing the potential in EVERYTHING (ask my husband, it’s a problem ?). Before ever designing our bedroom, I knew this nook was meant to be some sort of closet or built-in shelving.
Our Awkward Nook
The problem with this nook in the first place is that it was both too big and too small all at the same time. Furniture looked wrong because the space was so wide yet shallow that nothing fit the space quite right. Ever since I made over our office, we’d had this desk in our bedroom, which became a dropping ground for all the random things. I cannot tell you how much this drove me insane! Yet, no matter how hard I tried, we lacked storage and the desk became a permanent drop zone.
DIY Custom Bedroom Storage Shelves
One of our top needs for our bedroom renovation was more storage space. We travel a lot, so we needed a convenient place to hide our luggage bags that was easily accessible. I also needed space for our spare linens and my husband needed a spot for his various racing gear. Up until now, he had his miscellaneous gear piled in a corner by our bed. It made me cringe! All I ever wanted was for our bedroom to feel like a luxurious escape, and stuff on the floor makes it feel anything but.
Turning this awkward nook into built-in shelves solved all of my problems. Of course, I didn’t want my bedroom to feel cluttered, so that’s where the slat wall with hidden doors came in. No, I’ve never done anything like this before and severely underestimated how much work it would actually take. That said, I LOVE how it came out, and I LEARNED so much from the process! To me, that’s the best part of DIY.
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How to Turn an Awkward Nook into DIY Custom Shelves
Tools Needed:
- Table Saw or Circular Saw with Guide
- Miter Saw
- Brad Nail Gun
- Drill
- Stud Finder
- Level
- Orbital Sander
- Paintbrush / Roller
- Paint Tray
Supplies Needed:
- 1/2 inch plywood (for the shelves)
- 1×2 furring strips to support the shelves
- 1×2 finish boards (for the fronts of the shelves)
- 1.25 inch brad nails
- 2-inch screws
- Wood Glue
- Painters Tape
- Paint
1. Measure Your Space and Plan Your Storage Needs
Our nook is about 10 feet wide by 9 feet tall and 15.75 inches deep. It’s quite large, so it was a bit of an undertaking. If your space is smaller, especially if it’s under 8 feet wide, then this will be significantly easier for you! Since this is such a large space, it took some extra planning to figure out how to support the shelves and doors.
I initially debated if I should build this out as a cabinet instead of open shelving. However, the thing I got stuck on was the fact that I wanted my doors to be full-height, which meant they’d be fairly heavy. So, I was concerned that a cabinet with cabinet hinges wouldn’t support my doors. I also liked the idea of having the shelves open all the way across because this would give me space to store some awkward-sized items. We’ll never know since I didn’t go that route, but I do have to say, I’m glad I did it the way I did as it worked just as I envisioned it!
The other important part of planning is making sure you build the space to fit the specific items you need to store. One of my main goals was to hide our luggage in this closet, so I purposely built the first shelf tall enough to fit our bags underneath. That’s the beauty of custom shelving, you can make exactly what you need!
2. Mark Off Your Shelves with Masking Tape
Nearly every project I do starts with planning via masking tape. I need to visually see how everything fits in the allotted space and adjust before building anything. For this project, I taped off where I wanted the shelves visually, and then measured the distance between them to accommodate specific items. I also measured the space and planned out where the doors would go.
3. Build a Supporting Wall (Wide/Large Spaces Only)
If your space is particularly wide or large like mine, and if you’re planning to attach doors, then you’ll need to build a wall to support both the shelves and the doors. I followed simple directions to frame out a wall with a door. This DIY offered plenty of firsts, and building a wall/framing a door was one of them! Thankfully, the rough framing doesn’t need to be perfect, although I do wish I had spent a little more time making sure everything was as level as possible during this step. This would have saved me a bit of time later on, but it all worked out in the end!
4. Building Custom Shelves into an Open Nook
Once I had my wall built, I cut and installed my shelves. This step is actually fairly simple. I followed similar steps to how I built in the shelves in our office closet.
The basic instructions is to install 1×2 boards along the three sides against the wall to support the plywood shelf. You then set the plywood shelf on top and glue, screw, and/or nail it into place (I prefer wood glue and brad nails). I highly recommend painting everything before installing and then just doing any touch ups afterward. Trust me, painting inside of a closet is a lot less fun than it sounds. I chose to add a couple coats of wipe-on polyurethane to the tops of my shelves for extra durability.
Since my shelves were 10 feet long, I added additional supports along the shelf to keep it from sagging. I attached those with glue and short brad nails to hold them in place. The final step is to glue and nail on the front finish board, then fill the nail holes and paint! For this project, I opted not to add ¼ inch plywood to finish the bottom. It does make it feel a little more finished if you add it, but since I painted everything white, it all washes out anyway (plus the cost of plywood is still quite high!).
5. Finish Framing and Trim out the Doors
The only additional step here for my DIY custom storage closet is that I also had to add the finish pieces for the door frame. This was fairly simple, although tedious. Basically, the most important part is that you get it perfectly level. The way to do this is by using shims to support any areas that need to come out in order to make the opening square and level.
If you are painting your shelves, I highly recommend filling in all the seams and any crevices with caulking for a more seamless look. It makes such a difference!
Now, on to Part 2 where I show you how I made these custom shelves into a slat wall with hidden doors!
Check out the other room renovations happening on the One Room Challenge Blog!
