You know I love a good classroom transformation. This time, I wanted to give our home office a makeover! In this post, I’m sharing all the details on our DIY Home Office Built-ins complete with IKEA cabinets, a countertop desk, and shelving from Amazon. We had a local company give us a quote on this project. It was around 7k – WAY over budget for what we wanted to spend. So we decided to tackle it ourselves! We saved a ton of money, and we love the end result.
Here’s how we went from this…
to this…while staying on budget!
The Design
Our office setup was no longer working for us. My husband and I both use the office at different times. This is the space where I do all of my creating for Kindergarten Korner on the weekends and in the summer. When my husband uses the office, he works with multiple screens and devices. There were cords visible everywhere creating a major eyesore, and it was driving me crazy!
We wanted to design something more functional that was also aesthetically pleasing. I went to Pinterest and began pinning office spaces. I fell in love with the office built-ins featuring a desk space in the middle. This setup would be perfect for my husband and would maximize space while hiding all of those cords. A small desk in the front would work well for me and would complete the look.
Once we had our game plan, we measured and designed the space.
The Cabinets & Paint
I ordered the IKEA Sektion cabinets in the Axstad Matte Blue shade. The total price for two large cabinets (30x24x30) and two small cabinets (12x24x30) and the Axstad doors was $892. When they arrived, I took one of the cabinet doors to our local Sherwin Williams. They matched the color perfectly! Take a look at how the feature wall turned out with the cabinets.
The Desktop
Next on the list was the countertop. We wanted to create a built-in desktop to fit the entire length of the wall (130 inches). We priced different counter options, but these would have put us over-budget. Plywood was not an option either because the length of our wall was greater than 10 feet. We found a local lumber supply store that was able to piece together red oak wood to create this beautiful custom desktop for us for $400.
We liked the natural color of the wood, so we decided not to stain it. Instead, we sanded it and applied 3 coats of Polyurethane with a Foam Roller from Amazon.
It was all starting to come together beautifully!
The Shelving
Next, it was time to add the shelving. We purchased 2 sets of these 5 Tiered White Bookcases from Amazon. Prior to assembling them, I painted all the shelves with the blue paint to match the wall and cabinets.
We flipped the shelving units upside down so that the thick piece that is shown on Amazon as the product base now looked more like a molding on the top. We also did not attach the last shelf so that our desktop was visible.
A shout out to the most amazing husband for making my Pinterest dreams a reality. He’s the best!
The Finishing Touches
For the final touches, we purchased a 5×7 Blue Rug and a Hairpin Desk from Amazon. I styled the shelves with pieces from the clearance sections at Marshalls’ and TJ Maxx. I’m still deciding what I want to put on the middle wall – maybe some wooden shelves or wall art. We also plan to add gold handles to the cabinetry.
And there you have it! DIY Home Office Built-ins on a budget. Our total cost was around $1500, which is $5500 less than the quote we received! We got the look we wanted for so much less doing it ourselves. It was fun doing it together, and it turned out even better than we imagined! We hope you love it, too.
Comment below with any questions!
