Our entryway closet has been without a wall since before the bathroom renovation and it’s time to remedy that! This is still damage from a leak we had a year ago. It’s a long story but basically the insurance company refused to cover any of the damages and a friend of mine encouraged me to file a law suit, which I did, and is still in litigation. Ugh! Ok, now on to the good stuff.
Originally, this entryway closet had two of those builder grade bifold doors. White with slats, you know the ones. So the first thing I did was take that out. Instead of putting in a new door, I envisioned the closet to be open shelving and a cabinet with doors in the middle to hide bags and such. What gets stored in this front closet is shoes, beach stuff, backpacks and gym bags, for the most part.
The right side of the closet houses the AC and water heater, so there’s not much I can do there. I will put in a new door though.
After taking out the tile floor in the Yakisugi linen closet, I decided to do the same thing here. I chose a different tile this time for no real reason other than I saw it and liked it!
So, the tile came out and drywall went in. We cut the tile down to size and put that in. There was a little strip that we had to put in at the back because it wasn’t quite big enough. It was almost the perfect size. Since that little strip is in the back, you won’t see it. The closet is pretty deep and there will be floating shelves so you won’t see most of it.
After taping the drywall and skimcoating, I primed the entire closet. Then I started building out the cabinet and primed all of the plywood. I wanted to build the cabinet outside of the closet so that everything was perfectly square since the walls of the closet most definitely are not.
A fresh coat of white paint in the closet and it’s already looking a million times better! Never underestimate the power of paint to transform a space. It’s the easiest and cheapest way to make a big impact!
Next, I cut and installed baseboards. I had to be careful where I nailed these in because the bathtub and a bunch of pipes are right behind the back wall. I ended up using liquid nails for that piece to be safe. Then caulked the baseboards and filled the nail holes. Don’t skip this step! It makes a big difference!
Since I used scrap plywood that I had from a previous project and it was painted black, I primed it and then painted it. I used the Kreg jig to make pocketholes to put the cabinet together. Then used the Kreg jig wood plugs to fill the holes. The cabinet is basically a rectangular box open on one side. Pretty simple!
I used 1×2’s to trim it out and make the cabinet look like something other than plywood. You can also use edge banding right on the plywood if you want thinner trim but I happen to like the look of the thicker trim.
I made frames for two floating shelves out of 1×2’s which will be the shoe racks underneath the cabinet. I did a more in depth tutorial on how I build floating shelves in a previous post.
Installing the floating shelves is pretty easy, you just want to make sure you’re screwing into studs. The top and bottom of the shelves are plywood and then the 1×2 trim on the front finishes the shelf. Again, fill the nail holes and caulk the seams so it looks good! Some of the seams were pretty wide since the walls are so uneven, so I used foam backer rod first before caulking.
Both the floating shelves are in and everything is painted. It’s looking good! Don’t mind that hole in the wall on the right, it will be covered by the cabinet.
Now it’s time to put in the cabinet. This is where things got interesting. Because of the doorway, the cabinet would not fit through the opening. There is an inch or so in the front of the doorway that wouldn’t allow it to slide straight in even though the cabinet was measured and built to fit the dimensions perfectly. So we had to pivot and come up with a plan. We decided the best option was to take apart the cabinet and leave an L shape (the back and one side) after taking off the top and bottom and the other side. This allowed us to get part of the cabinet in and screwed into studs. Then we flipped the left side around so that we could use the existing pocket holes. The only down side to that was that side was not primed or painted and now those pocket holes had to be filled. Putting the top and bottom on were pretty easy and we eventually got the cabinet back together and hung.
Next, I framed out the cabinet with 1×2’s and did all of the finish work. Another couple coats of paint and it was done!
Next it was time to make the cabinet doors. I went with a basic shaker style door with rails and stiles. I cut all the pieces and used pocketholes to screw them together. I know it’s not the most professional way to do this but I don’t have a table saw or any fancy joinery woodworking tools. Maybe someday I’ll learn how to do those things. But for now, this works for me!
After I got the frames together, I used the router to make space for the burlap that I’m putting inside the frames.
This is what the frame looks like after routing. You can see I didn’t fill the kreg jig pocketholes yet.
I also bought a Kreg Jig Concealed Hinge jig (like this one linked here). This made it super easy to drill the holes for the hinges including where the screws go. This was the first time I’d used it and it worked great! If you don’t have one of these, I don’t know how you would do it unless you have a drill press.
I decided to use burlap for a few reasons. Originally I wanted to use caning because I like that look and it’s really popular right now, but I was afraid the holes would be too big and you’d be able to see into the cabinet. It’s also quite expensive, as is rattan. So I settled on burlap which was cheap and gave me the look I wanted for way less!
This is an example of what the cane webbing that I was considering costs comparatively.
I used my Ryobi Crown Stapler (this is the newer version) to put in the burlap and it worked really well. After stapling it all the way around, I trimmed the edge leaving about a half inch, folded it over and stapled it again to give it a cleaner look.
One done, one to go!
I also made my own handles out of 5/8″ wooden dowels and some copper tee’s. Easy and I like how they look. Plus they’re about $5 to make and cabinet hardware can get expensive!
The cool thing about these is you can make them custom to any length you want. And you can spray paint the copper if you want a different finish and you could stain or paint the wooden dowels too. Totally customizable!
Another reason I decided to use burlap instead of cane webbing was because I was worried that the large holes in traditional caning would be too see through, especially on the AC door side. It still needed to be breathable though because the AC is an air intake and needs air flow. This solved both of those issues and saved me a ton of money!
The cabinet doors are in and the handles are on and they look great!
I added a couple big backpack hooks on the inside walls of the cabinet to hang bags and keep things organized. I got them on Amazon.
The last thing I did, just for funsies, was add wallpaper to the inside of the cabinet. I wanted a pop of color and some tropical vibes. After all, we do live by the beach!
I did decide to make a door for the AC unit. The bifold door had to go. I did the exact same thing as the cabinet doors, just measured to fit the opening of the door.
I was so worried about getting everything square that not everything got connected flush so I had to do a little wood filling and sanding to smooth everything out. I also had a blowout on one of the screws so I had to repair that with some wood glue and clamped it together.
Because I had to sand things down, I had to prime it again before painting.
Quick! Let’s get this ugly AC unit covered up with a pretty door!
Here’s the door before I put in the burlap. Pretty basic! We used some super small hinges that we got off of an old cabinet and repurposed them.
I didn’t take any pictures of putting in the burlap but I just stapled it in where I routed out the inside of the doors the same as the cabinet doors.
Here is my original sketch. Let’s see how closely it resembles the finished product.
What do you think? Pretty good, right? I’m soooooo happy with how it came out. This is the first thing you see when you walk in the front door so I wanted it to look nice and it definitely does!
Let me know if you have any questions about this project. I added links for most of the things I used or the closest alternative I could find. Hope this was helpful! Until next time!
Thanks for reading! For more video content (and entertainment), be sure to follow me on Instagram at @selenebuildsthings. Hopefully I will be starting a YouTube channel at some point too!