Spring 2021 One Room Challenge: Week Five

Just like that, we’re over halfway through the One Room Challenge sponsored by Better Homes & Gardens! I cannot believe how quickly this challenge has gone by, and how many amazing friends I’ve met through the support of this challenge. The once most embarrassing & hideous space in my house is now quickly becoming the most jaw dropping and brag-worthy space.

This week’s project tackles a recurring theme: storage, storage, storage! It’s built-ins week! Essentially this is an additional pantry or closet that didn’t exist before for cleaning supplies, and overflow from our small kitchen. These things have all been living in this mudroom space out in the open, and it has always made me crazy. I have always wanted each item to have a designated space or home. For me, being a creative messy (more on that here), closed storage was the way to go.

With lumber and building material prices so high right now, I looked into all options for these built-ins. I contemplated flipping an existing cabinet, but nothing was quite big enough. I looked into doing a beloved IKEA hack, but it was actually more expensive than the raw materials. I ended up going with MDF and building this cabinet from the ground up.

Building from scratch is my favorite part of woodworking & DIY. There are few things more empowering than building something from the ground up, and getting it exactly customized to your needs. You can walk by proudly and say, “There was literally nothing here yesterday, and now there’s this amazing thing that I built with my own two hands.” These moments always bring the biggest smile to my face.

Now these moments don’t usually come without some trial & error and frustration beforehand. Dealing with the heavy weight of MDF and lifting it above your head is no joke. There were moments when I worried that this whole thing might collapse, but with proper support, it worked out well.

On the left side, I chose to create shelves to house those extra kitchen appliances. I made them about 2′ apart so they’re tall enough for all the fun kitchen gadgets in my collection. On the right side, I decided to make a broom closet of sorts, with space for our broom, vacuum, and mop. This posed some challenges as the supports needed to be in different locations on each side of the cabinet. I attached everything with wood glue, nails, & Spax screws. This thing isn’t going anywhere, it’s truly built in.

The last step for this week was attaching a face frame to make it look more professional. I just used simple MDF 1×2’s for this. They say Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither was this cabinet. Still to come on this will be all the filling, caulking, priming, & of course painting. Follow along in this week’s Instagram stories @bonitabyrachel to vote on paint colors, and make sure you’re following the One Room Challenge Blog to see the incredible progress all my new friends are making on their spaces too!