We don't have a huge budget for the laundry room. There are bigger and better projects demanding our money. To save money I made over old cabinets and was able to get a room full of custom cabinetry for under $100.
It's pretty rare for my local store to have any sort of cabinetry so I was surprised to find this ugly sink base cabinet for $20.
It's pretty rare for my local store to have any sort of cabinetry so I was surprised to find this ugly sink base cabinet for $20.
The laundry room only has space for a 24" cabinet; this one is 36" wide. The doors and drawer fronts are solid maple so I removed them and set them aside for future use. This left the face frame of the cabinet.
Then I cut the horizontal portions of the face frame and attached the shortened pieces to the side of the cabinet. This created a new, smaller face frame with only one door opening. I also built up the base of the cabinet so it would be 1" taller than the washer and dryer. I found an old scrap of plywood to cover the toe-kick area. Since it's getting painted the markings don't matter.
Once the sink base cabinet was built I turned my attention to the doors. I have cabinets that were removed from the old laundry area and kitchen that I wanted to use in the laundry room. But the doors were just oak-veneer plywood.
I like shaker cabinets and they are quite easy to fake, especially if you recently installed wooden blinds. My wooden blinds were 3' longer than my windows so I had a lot of extra slats left over. I cut them to length then attached them to the door with glue and my brad nailer.
After the glue was dry I sanded the slats to make sure the paint would bond well.
Each door was then puttied and sanded again to look seamless before receiving a coat of primer.
Each cabinet received two coats of paint and had to be laid flat to flat to keep the paint from running. I used Cabinet Coat paint which make the cabinets look like they have a factory finish instead of being painted after the fact. After everything was dry I installed the new hinges and hung the cabinet doors.
Sink Base Cabinet
Heat System Wall
Budget:
$40 - Louvered doors from restore
$20 -Sink Base
$10 - Paint (used less than a quart, the rest will be used upstairs)
$10 - Spray Primer
$8 - Nickel hinges
$4 - Door pulls
$3 - Track for bypass doors
Total cost $95
Sink Base Cabinet
Heat System Wall
Budget:
$40 - Louvered doors from restore
$20 -Sink Base
$10 - Paint (used less than a quart, the rest will be used upstairs)
$10 - Spray Primer
$8 - Nickel hinges
$4 - Door pulls
$3 - Track for bypass doors
Total cost $95
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