When I designed this home, House 2 – Coastal Hamptons, I always knew I wanted to create a space near the entrance of the shopper door for a drop zone/ mini mudroom, since they are so handy, but also add such a feature to the home!
With this home being built as an investment property, I knew I didn’t want to spend thousands on custom cabinetry, so I started thinking of a DIY solution. There are a lot online, but I never came across one exactly like mine, so I thought I’d detail it all in a blog post in case anyone else wanted to try it out too!
What you'll need:
- A storage cube that fits your space
- MDF
- Timber off cuts
- Circular saw, or handsaw
- Skirting board that matches your existing skirting
- Liquid nails
- Gap filler/ caulking
- Spakfilla
- Paint
- Roller
- Hooks
Step 1: Finding a storage cube as the base
The first step to this project is to find a storage cube that will fit your space best.
Our space is 980mm wide x 500mm deep, and I found that the Flexi Storage Clever Cube 3 x 1 was the best option. Not perfect, but well enough that I could make work!
If you’re on the hunt I’d recommend looking at places like Kmart, Target, Big W, Fantastic Furniture, Amart, Officeworks and Ikea, as they all have great affordable options. Have a look at the each of the dimensions, and go with the one that’s just slightly too small for your space.
While I was in Bunnings, I noticed Flexi Storage had a great shelf option with hooks, their Coat Shelf with Hooks, which meant I could just put that up, instead of having to build a shelf, add hooks and so forth. So this was a great option!
Step 2: Start building
Now that you’ve got the cube, which will be used as the base of it all, you can start to build it up and frame it out to give it a custom & built in look!
Firstly, you want to get some timber off cuts to put as the base, so that once you place the cube on top, it sits just above the existing skirting boards around the space.
Once we did that, we cut a bit of MDF to place on top for the cube to sit on, although this bit is optional.
Now that we were happy with the height, we decided to just use liquid nails instead of actual nails, as we’ve had great results with liquid nails on projects like this in the past.
We then cut another bit of MDF to sit on the top of the cube as well, as the cube was only 310mm deep, and we wanted it to feel a bit more substantial in the space and come out further.
Since there was also gaps either side of the cube as it didn’t fit the space perfectly, we cut some more MDF to slot in either side to hide the gaps.
Once we’d cut the top and side bits from MDF and checked to make sure they fit, we then glued them in with liquid nails too.
The last step of the “building” part is to add the skirting board on, which really gave it that custom and built in look!
We knew we wanted to do this project, so when we installed all the skirting on the house, we made sure to keep enough to able to use here, which again we just used liquid nails to glue on.
Step 3: Filling all the gaps
I have a love hate relationship gap filler – I hate doing it, but it makes SUCH a big difference!
In areas where the gaps were a bit bigger I used Selley’s Spakfilla, and all other areas I used Selley’s interior gap filler, and I’m sure you can see the difference in the photo below compared to the one above!
Step 4: Painting
Once all the gap filler has dried, the last step is to paint!
I used the same paint that we’d used on all the skirting boards and doors in the home, which is the Trim paint by Tint, in the colour Paper Plane.
Before painting, make sure to lightly sand all the surfaces, especially inside the cubes, as it’s a lot harder to get the paint to stick to that surface.
Step 5: Styling & enjoy!
I picked up some baskets from Kmart to add into the cubes, and added a couple of cushions to soften the space, but here you can do whatever you like and what fits your needs best!
Hoping this helped give you inspiration or some tips if you wanted to try this out in your home too! And make sure to head over to my Instagram @jo.marie_blissfulbuilds to see it video form as well! ♡
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