Evening project: Installing some Laundry Room Storage Cabinets

The day I went look at the property that ended up being my second house, there were a few things I noticed immediately. One of them was the lack of any kind of laundry room storage cabinets, shelves or similar to store any laundry supplies.

Why did I notice it right away you may ask? Because just a few weeks before that day I had worked on the exact same issue at my first house.

Unfortunately, I did not document that upgrade, so it cannot be featured on this blog.

However, since I already had the experience of installing some laundry room storage cabinets at the “old” house, I knew exactly what it was going to take to do the exact same thing at this “new” house. Once it was mine, of course.

This second time, I also documented it.

 

BUYING AND INSTALLING THE LAUNDRY ROOM STORAGE CABINETS

As the title suggest, this was a very straightforward and inexpensive project that you can complete on an evening after work. The main thing is getting everything you need in advance so you can get home and start working without having to waste time going back to the store.

In my case, after unsuccessfully trying to get some used cabinets on craigslist (I could not find anything to fit on the space) I ended up getting two unfinished Oak wall cabinets from Lowes, a 30 and a 15-inch one, as well as a couple of fill strips.

There are obviously nicer options, but it all depends on how much you are willing and able to spend.

To complete the installation I:

• Identified and marked wall studs to be used to screw in cabinets.
• Measured wall and cabinets and decided about the right cabinet height/position and marked it on the wall as a guide for installation.
• Drilled pilot holes on the sides of the cabinet frames and fill strips and screwed them together. I also used some glue although it may be unnecessary.
• Measured fill strips and calculated how much I needed to cut, making sure I cut them about 1/8 of an inch wider to account for errors and saw blade width.
• Positioned the first cabinet on the left (15-inch) using the mark on the back wall as a guide to set it at the right height and the left wall to make sure there was no gap.
• While holding the cabinet in place, I drilled pilot holes on the cabinet and into the wall studs.
• Used 3 ½ inch screws to screw it in place.
• To install the cabinet on the right (30-inch), I followed the exact same steps, except that I had to cut the fill strip a bit more for it to fix.
• Once both cabinets were screwed into the back wall, I went ahead and drilled pilot holes on the sides of the frames and screwed both cabinets together.

 

STAINING THE CABINETS

With the cabinets in place, although I now believe that it may have been better to complete this step before installation, I went ahead and used some masking tape and stain left over from my previous Kitchen Remodeling Project to stain the new cabinets.

According to the Lowes’ website, these cabinets are “Ready” to be finished. Which is a good thing, it allows you to stain or paint them as you wish. However, before you do that, some light sanding may still be necessary. I did not do any extra sanding, but it definitely would not have hurt, at least before putting an extra coat of stain, in which case, you may have to wait until the next day before completely finishing the project.

Readers, do you have any laundry room storage? Are they cabinets, shelves or a closet? What do you think of my set up?

Interested on installing your own laundry room storage cabinets? This is what you need:

• Screwdrivers and hand tools (always useful)
• Drill and drill bits
• Stud finder
• Circular saw or similar (to cut fill strips to the right width)
• Cabinets and fill strips
• Stain, masking tape, and brush (optional)
• Long screws

*This post contains affiliate links