Customize Ikea Cabinets – Laundry Room Makeover

More and more people are realizing that you can customize IKEA cabinets. Even the most experienced carpenters we know buy IKEA boxes and then build their own doors. You just can’t beat the price or convenience. So that’s exactly what we started with when we renovated the laundry room in our basement! Our laundry room makeover will show you how to customize and install Ikea cabinets. 

Our laundry room was an unpleasant place to do laundry in for the longest time. To make it a bit more functional, Hubs threw in an old cabinet base and some drywall. But what it really needed was storage. A lot more storage.

How to Customize Ikea Cabinets

Enter IKEA! IKEA makes a great product that’s easy to install with their rail system! Hubs first builds the cabinets.

Hubs and a friend made custom dark stained doors. There’s nothing in the middle of the frame right now (save for Hubs’ tools) but we installed temporary panels as you’ll see later.

Install Rails

Hubs used a laser level to mount the rail.

Each box is simply put onto the rail system.

Secure the boxes through the back of each cabinet.

The boxes go up very quickly thanks to IKEA’s rail system.

Once the cabinets were up, Hubs installed the door frames. We temporarily installed solid white panels to hide the mess behind the doors (you’ll see how that looks just before the reveal).

In the interim, we finish the drywall, paint, tile the laundry room backsplash and add under counter lighting and a new counter top. Phew. That’s a lot for one little room!

Customize Ikea Cabinets with Glass Doors

It was starting to come together, but I had something even better planned for the doors! For the second phase of our laundry room makeover, I purchased sheets of a beautiful patterned glass called Everglade. I used  a glass cutter to cut the glass to fit each panel and popped them in.

To keep the glass secure around the edges, I used this clear panel retainer.

Initially I was going to install the glass as-is. Isn’t it pretty?

As pretty as the glass is, I didn’t want to see clutter through it. So I reinstalled the solid panels behind the glass as a backer. As you’ll see later, the front of the panels that show through the glass are the same light grey colour as our wall paint (Benjamin Moore’s Balboa Mist). The effect it gives makes it look like the glass is back painted.

Start the retainer at one corner and go all the way around in one continuous piece.

Push the retainer under the lip of the frame to hold the glass tight. It gets cut once it meets at the starting point.

Here’s the first door installed. Only 7 more pieces of glass to cut!

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Last door in!

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Transformation: Start to Finish

Before the reveal, to truly appreciate how far it’s come, I can’t help but show you the progression of our laundry room from start to finish. When I first moved in and plugged in my washer and dryer, it looked like this:

Here’s those white panels I mentioned earlier. This is before we tiled the backsplash and installed flooring etc.

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Here are the panels painted grey after the tile and undercounted lighting went in!

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Right after that is when the glass panels went in. Do you see what I mean by all the clutter?

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You can’t really see it in the pictures, but the glass lends a beautiful texture to the doors. I think it’s so much nicer than solid wood!

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If you back up just a little, you can see my collection of antique irons. I actually share the laundry room with my craft studio.

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If you’re curious about the tile, we show you how to install a patterned backsplash.  There’s also a post on our laminate countertop installation.

Soon to come is my Mom’s accessible bathroom build. Get your DIY mojo on at Birdz of a Feather and subscribe if you don’t want to miss how we turned a powder room into a three-piece bathroom with a curbless shower!

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Transform a laundry room by customizing Ikea Cabinets. Birdz of a Feather | laundry room makeover | customize Ikea cabinets | how to customize Ikea cabinets | laundry room ideas | laundry room decor | laundry room makeover | laundry room storage | laundry room design | home improvement | home improvement diy | home improvement ideas | home improvement projects | cabinet makeover

4 thoughts on “Customize Ikea Cabinets – Laundry Room Makeover

    • Thanks Susan! It’s so nice to finally have storage – and it also provides a nice view from my craft studio 🙂

  1. Love how it turned out Sara and that collection of old irons is beautiful. I wish we stayed closer. I have a whole bunch of pretty rusty ones that need a lovely home where they can be showcased 😉

    • Oh, wouldn’t that be fabulous! Perhaps one day you’ll move to Canada to be closer to your kids (are they still here)?

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