DIY Semi-Custom Cabinets

Remember these?

 I bought these from my local Habitat for humanity ReStore for $6.36 total. These used to belong to a hotel and housed the mini fridge most hotel rooms have. I went with the intention of buying just one. A manager offered me another for just $1.00 more. I said "Sure! I don't know what I'll do with it, but I'll take it!" I didn't know what to do with it until my husband broought them up and stacked them on top of each other. TA-DA that's how I decided to made these semi-custom cabinets.

I'm so happy with the way it came out. First I had to make some adjustments to the bottom cabinet so the top one would sit on it more securely. I couldn't do it myself, so my knight in shining armor helped me out. He enjoyed taking a hammer to it.

 I painted them in Olympic One's "Bone White" and spray painted the front panel and knob in Valspar's Metallic "Aluminum". I never have a detailed plan of what I'm going to do, only a general one and I allow what ever mistakes or imperfections that happen to surprise me. With this project I used an old brush that was a little stiff from other projects. This left lines in the paint, which I liked. It left kind of a textured look instead of a smooth one. On the front panel, a little paint was lost when I removed the painters tape and allowed the original color to show through.

Lastly, since I'm not the strongest of people, I scraped some paint off while I was trying to set the top cabinet up. All these accidents only made the cabinets look a little more distressed and I like that look.

The "custom" part came in on the inside of the cabinets. I added shelves to store all the extras, like the printer and paper shredder. I bought 2 pieces of particle board at $7.04 a piece and had the strong men at Lowes cut it down for me. Here is were I made a mistake. I measured the selves to be the exact measurements of the interior sides of the cabinet. The problem with that is you can get the self in, it was too tight of a fit. So, I went back to Lowes, kids in tow, to shave off a bit from the sides. A few 1" x 1/2" "L" brackets to hold the self up and TA-DA

I totally didn't paint the inside because 1) you don't see it and 2) I was painting during the girls nap and I didn't know how much time I had before they woke up. The whole project cost me $45 and a couple of days. Now I have amazing storage for my office supplies and files. Awesome! Now on to the next project!