Checking In: Living Room Built-ins (Nearly a Year Later!)

DIY is always a slow moving train around here. Between the two of us working full time, a 8 month old, and year-round softball - life is one huge time suck and there just isn't much time or energy leftover for house projects.

I had to scroll all the way back to December 2016 in my phone to find this photo:

Those are our cabinets for the built-in getting delivered - almost a year ago!

Man...we suck!

Anyways...it's almost December 2017 and we're still not done. We're close though!

Ok, I lied. We're about 50% done. But since the living room built-ins is on our list of 2017 House Goals list, I thought I'd show you where we're at and how we got here.

After soliciting several quotes and dying of sticker shock (basically this project all over again) we decided to DIY. DIYing a built-in isn't really all that hard. It's just intimidating. So before we got started, we pulled inspiration from these DIY built-in projects here, here, and here and just went for it.

We chose to use unfinished upper kitchen cabinets from Home Depot because they were readily available, affordable, and wouldn't eat up a lot of floor space. They arrived December 17, 2016 - see picture above.

We went with five 30" upper kitchen cabinets for an almost 13 foot built-in unit! Hellllo storage!

After the cabinets arrived we built a base for the cabinets to sit on. We did this so that we could wrap baseboard around the base of the cabinets for a "built-in look". We chose to have the base flush with the cabinet fronts rather than set back like a traditional toe-kick in a kitchen set-up.

 

 

Since we have 5" baseboard all throughout the house we built the base for the cabinets to sit on just slightly smaller than 5". This way...the baseboards would completely cover the base plus slightly overlap the bottom edge of the cabinets. I think we ended up going with a 2x4 and 1x2 turned on its side to achieve the height we needed.

 

We also ran a 2x4 along the back wall of the living room - secured into the studs - to bump the cabinets out away from the wall about 2". We did this for a few reasons...the first was so that we could easily secure the cabinets to the 2x4 (which was already secured to the studs) so we didn't have to worry about hitting studs if we had secured the cabinets directly to the wall. The second reason we did this was because bumping the cabinets out from the wall 2" allows the bookshelves up top to be recessed a bit. With the 2" bump out the counter becomes 15" deep (12" cabs + 2" bump out + 1" overhang = 15" counter) giving a little extra counter space up top and an overall better "built-in" look.

What came next was probably by far the hardest part of the entire install. So glad it's over and so glad we both still love each other after the fact - ha!

To install the cabinets we started with the base we had built on the ground, set each cabinet on top, and began securing the cabinets to the 2x4 along the back wall all while making sure everything was level and plum - using shims where necessary (omg - so many shims). The first cabinet was pretty easy and straightforward - it was secured to the side wall, the back wall, the base, AND the adjoining cabinet. It did however, get more difficult with every cabinet we added to ensure that the unit as a whole was level and plum. We had to use quite a few shims along the back wall because our wall is not perfectly straight (what wall is?) and we also shimmed the base quite a bit because our floor slopes down pretty bad in that area too. Other than that...we secured the hell out of these cabinets: to the back wall, the base, and the adjoining cabinet(s) - they aren't going anywhere!

Below is the side view - right after we installed the cabinets and getting ready to add baseboard. This area got covered up with a project panel so you'd never know we're cheating the depth by 2".

 

 

A couple things I should probably mention - we did not secure the base to the floor at all. I didn't want to drill holes into perfectly good flooring in case a future owner wanted to come in and rip it out and then be left with holes. We could've secured the base to the side wall if we wanted to but determined that the sheer weight of all the cabinets plus bookshelves up top would prevent this thing from going anywhere.

We also made sure to measure and cut out holes in the back of a few cabinets so that we had access to any outlets along the wall. We did this before securing the cabinet so if we had to make any adjustments, it was easier to do.

Once all the cabinets were installed and secured - we focused on the top or the "counter" portion of the built in.

I knew going in that this would be the portion of the project that would be our biggest hang up. We built a 13 ft cabinet but finding a 13 ft topper would prove to be either very difficult, very expensive, or both. SPOILER ALERT: it's both.

One of the tutorials that I referenced above used a single piece of butcher block for affordability and while butcher block is affordable, a 13 ft length was still a few hundred dollars and more than I wanted to spend. Plus...I didn't want a stained top. I wanted an all white top to achieve the look of this project. Except they were working with pre-fab Ikea cabinets and didn't need a top like we did.

So after procrastinating about it way too long, we decided to make our own. We chose a high quality, paint grade, birch plywood and seamed 2 smaller pieces together to make one massive counter top that could be painted to match the rest of the cabinets. We purchased the plywood from Home Depot and had them rip it down to size in the store.

 

Here's my handy helper:

 

 

I'd tell you how we seamed the 2 pieces together but we aren't wood workers and our approach is probably embarrassingly incorrect. We attached flat brackets on the underside for support and we used birch veneer tape on the edge of the plywood top to give it a nice finished look. We also made sure to fill, sand, and plane the top seam to make it look like 1 long piece of wood vs 2 pieces stuck together. No one but us will know (and now too you I guess) that we took the cheap way out: the cost of a single sheet of high quality plywood - $50!

To wrap up where we're at now, the cabinets and top have been painted white, we attached the top to the cabinets using construction adhesive and installed some pretty gold hardware - a well deserved splurge since we saved thousands doing this ourselves.

 

 

Next up: bookshelves, shiplap, and trim!

Here's to hoping it doesn't take another year to knock this out...

A few more Sun Room Updates

We’ve done quite a bit of work in the sun room over the last few months - nothing amazing or particularly hard - but it really has come a long way and I wanted to show you how this little extension of living space has evolved since we moved in.

When I blogged about replacing our windows you may have noticed in the after photos that we added curtains. I say windows but really...our “windows” aren’t actually windows - they’re sliding doors.

Sometimes...ok – most the time – sliding doors aren’t great looking. Often times they're old, aluminum, yellowed, rickety, or they make a lot of noise every time you open and close them, and everyone would really like to have french doors instead. Right? It's what you see all over those home décor magazines and design shows - big beautiful windows that let in tons of natural light or French doors left wide open, leading you out into a perfectly manicured backyard. #housegoals

But sometimes you live in an apartment (we have) or sometimes, like in our case, French doors just aren't in the budget (it wasn't) and those #housegoals just isn't your reality. So you opt for the budget friendly option and install sliding doors.

We did and they ain't all that bad now, are they?

Remember in this post where I told you that the quotes we received ranged anywhere from 8k to over 30k? I remember being about 4 months pregnant and gasping when the rep quoted us 30k to replace our sliding doors with all-wood french doors. Triple what vinyl sliding doors cost us!!! We promptly told him thank you but hell no - we have kids to feed.

As you already know, we went with the sliding doors but here's how I make them look like we paid 30k without actually having to:

• If installing new - go white. We had to have a different color on the outside per our HOA requirements so we paid a little extra to have the frames white on the inside. The white will draw the eye away from the window itself and allow you to focus on the view beyond. It'll also make the area look and feel larger. I toyed around with the idea of black frames because it's super on trend right now to have black framed windows against stark white walls, but unless you're dealing with actual windows or French doors, white is your best bet.

• Always add curtains! Throw a curtain rod above your sliders just like you would a window and I promise, you'll be happy you did. Just remember to hang your curtains high and wide! I did this in our last apartment - even with the vertical blinds that were already there - and it made such a huge difference. Here's an old picture I dug up to show you:

 

It took a little while to get around to adding curtains to the sun room mainly because our configuration is a bit odd.

Our sliders go floor to ceiling (there's no wall space to install a traditional rod above the slider) and then we have a beam running between each set of sliders. In addition to the tricky configuration, each set of sliders are 96" wide which made finding a long enough rod that wasn't $$$ even more difficult.

I ended up going with this Ikea rod and these wall mounts that we attached directly to the beams but for those lucky people who have normal sliders in a normal configuration, any curtain rod will work! We used the Ritva curtains also from Ikea to save on cost and these curtain rings from Amazon. It was by far the cheapest way to go to dress this many "windows". Plus it can withstand my 8 month old trying to climb the curtains sooo there's that.

 

Aaaand for the easiest DIY ever...if you ever buy a pair of curtains that are too long, this no-sew hem tape is MAGIC! I literally just hung the curtains up and trimmed off the excess fabric while they were still up and then used the hem tape to finish them off for a clean hem line.

A few other updates we made in this space:

The water damaged drywall by the laundry room got patched:

The entire room got a fresh coat of bright white paint - Super White by Sherwin Williams and the yellowed recessed lights all got sprayed white too - Rustoleum White in a Matte finish:

The laundry room and master bedroom doors both went darker - Tricorn by Sherwin Williams:

Here's a before and after side by side looking towards the master bedroom:

And looking down the other direction:



Still to come: adding a long runner (probably FLOR tiles) and I'm tossing around the idea of planking the ceiling and wood wrapping the beams.

There's always more work to be done it seems...