We all have nooks in our house that get consumed with clutter. I am also guilty of having a few cluttered corners in my home. On top of my stairs, I have a small cupboard, and I decided to give this small storage space a budget makeover by using €25 Ikea VÄRD doors. I managed to get a custom built-in look on a budget.
Custom built-ins are expensive. However, I think I managed to achieve the built-in look without breaking the bank.
This project took me a weekend to do ( mainly because of the decluttering) and, I hope it gives you inspiration for any cluttered cupboards you have.
My cluttered cupboard, the before
As you can see from the before picture, this had become a dumping ground for some home decor pieces I had and general clutter. It was hard to find things I wanted and looked like a mess. Things would often fall out on top of me when I opened the doors.
I began my project by removing all of the clutter and organising it.
In my paint stash, I had enough paint to freshen up the inside of my cupboard. So, I removed the old doors, cleaned the wood and gave the inside two coats of paint.
While waiting for the paint to dry, I sorted through my clutter and used baskets to organise. Using baskets made it easier to arrange my stuff, and they stacked easily in the cupboard.
I bought three Ikea INSVEP baskets for the top shelf and the other baskets I already had in the cupboard.
Using the Ikea VÄRD doors for a budget custom built-in look
I wanted to change the doors on the cupboard for a half glass/half covered look. The area on top of my stairs is small and having glass panels in the doors makes it look bigger.
There are two sizes of Ikea VÄRD door, and I went for the 40×180 cm size.
I used my circular saw to cut off a few inches from the bottom of the Ikea VÄRD door to make it fit my nook.
When I attached the doors, I had a large gap in the middle. So, to fix this, I attached a strip of wood to one of the doors. I have a YouTube video sharing how I achieved the finished look. I will pop a link below.
Click here for my YouTube video sharing my custom built-in cupboard on a budget
If you are swamped in clutter, you are not alone! Check out this post where I share my tips on decluttering. It can be hard to know where to start when it comes to decluttering, so I hope you get some helpful decluttering tips from it. Click here to read.
I hope you got some inspo from my weekend project. Using flat-pack doors and tweaking them to fit your cupboard is a budget-friendly way to get that custom-built look without breaking the bank.
Do let me know in the comments below if you too have tried something like this, and don’t forget to check out my YouTube video by clicking here.
Thanks for reading, Chat soon, Catherine.
