• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • Kitchens
  • Bathrooms
  • Blog
  • Exterior
  • Other Rooms
  • Decorate
  • The “Museum”
  • Be Safe/Renovate Safe
Retro Renovation
Retro Renovation

Retro Renovation

Remodel & decorate in Mid Century Style

  • Home
  • Kitchens
  • Bathrooms
  • Blog
  • Exterior
  • Other Rooms
  • Decorate
  • The “Museum”
  • Be Safe/Renovate Safe
Home / Decorating Resources / Storage & Shelving

Open base cabinet shelving for my office craft room: Help!

pam kueber - April 10, 2012, Updated: May 12, 2021

I am going nuts. Here is what I want for storage in my office craft room space:

  • Base cabinets with open shelving that are 24″ front-to-back (like kitchen cabinets), so that I can add a 25″ deep work surface counter on top.
  • The overall installation needs to be 36″ high – also just like a kitchen.
  • On legs.
  • The inside sides need to have those little pegs on the side to you can adjust shelf sizes. I’ll add brass grommets.
  • In my dreams, chunky natural wood frame, with white shelves.
  • In my dreams and here’s where it gets really complicated:  I’d like the design to allow me to adjust the width of the shelves and back and therefore, the width of the cabinet to fit the exact dimensions of my space. Like: The legs and side pieces would be a fixed depth and height (24″ deep, 36″ high with the legs and counter). The width of the shelves and back (if you wanted a back) could be adjusted easily by cutting down the shelves or using different sizes of shelves.
  • Affordable — considering I am talking about a simple wood frame, and am fine with piney legs and MDF shelves.

Kinda sorta like the Ikea Varde freestanding kitchen cabinet unit above (now discontinued but see Ikea kitchen islands section for proxies available today) — but my design need to be shelves only and needs to be infinitely adjustable in width. Haha, that’s all I need: “infinitely.” Does anyone know of something available to suit my needs?? I have already spent, like, 30 hours online looking, and I am finding it’s constitutionally impossible for me to “settle“.

So far, the closest I am coming is the idea of using Ikea Akurums (1) in plain white (2) without the doors (3) put onto natural wood legs and (4) somehow, further framed by me in some kind of wood, to get the white-within-wood effect. However, this does not allow infinite flexiblity, as the Ikea Akurum shelf-only cabinets go only up to 24″. Also, I am not too keen on going the Ikea route. Ingredients of these pieces include and I quote: “Particleboard, Polypropylene, Melamine foil, Fiberboard, Acrylic paint”. I an not anti-plastic, just anti-plastic in this particular room quest. And third, even at “just” $70, this Ikea cabinets strikes me as overpriced compared to other items on their site. I think that because it’s called a “kitchen cabinet” the price is about $30 too high. For plastic, and those legs are even extra…

Meanwhile, I am doodling a design of my own — one that tries to use stock lumber and woodworking pieces — even though I have never tried to design furniture before.

Do you know of anything out there that might fit my demanding criteria??

CATEGORIES:
Decorating Resources Storage & Shelving

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE

  • 1959 mid century modern living room
    Dave makes mid century modern wall panels for his living room for $250

Reader Interactions

Comments are closed. 

51 comments

Comments

  1. Katie says

    April 11, 2012 at 3:32 pm

    The doors are sold separately, because IKEA sells one set of base cabinets and offers a bunch of different door choices. I’ve never ordered online, but I know that in the store, you can just not have the doors added to the order.

  2. Rita@thissortaoldlife says

    April 11, 2012 at 2:46 pm

    We’ve been having the same problem with our bathroom vanity, and have been down the Ikea road (and back). Finally found a basic vanity at the ReStore (for about $10, I think), and we put retro furniture legs on it (from Ace Hardware), and Cane added some shelves to the side of it. Don’t have the whole project ready to post yet, but we wrote about all the things that didn’t work. Like you, we got to a place where we were pretty particular about what we wanted. I think the ideas about finding an existing piece and modifying it are good ways to go.

  3. Annie B. says

    April 11, 2012 at 11:50 am

    If it were my project, I’d draw it on paper and get estimates from locals who could construct it for me. You’d get exactly what you want and can make changes during construction if need be.

« Older Comments

Primary Sidebar


Footer

Follow Along

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • RENOVATE SAFE
  • About
  • Blog
  • The “Museum”
  • Kitchens
  • Bathrooms
  • Exterior
  • Other Rooms
  • Terms of Service
  • Privacy Notice
  • Disclosures
  • Contact

© 2023 Retro Renovation® • All Rights Reserved • Website by Anchored Design
Please do not use any materials without prior permission. Portrait by Keith Talley Photography