Creating More Functionality with Living Room and Kitchen Built-Ins

Creating more functionality with living room and kitchen built-ins with a 1930’s style gave this one large shared area purpose.

small cottage living room and kitchen with reclaimed shiplap and beadboard built-ins

REDESIGNING OUR LIVING ROOM AND KITCHEN WALL

In our last blog and video, we talked about the challenges we had with designing our space. Specifically with the large shared living room and kitchen wall.

small cottage living room and kitchen diagram

An idea Nate had was to move the office and bedroom doors next to each other in the center of the wall. That way the space on the outside of those doors could be designated for the living room and kitchen area and used with more functionality. And more importantly, that we had a better spot to place our TV!

The idea turned out so great and in this blog, I will share how Nate designed and built our living room and kitchen built-ins!

DESIGNING HANDMADE BUILT-INS

Nate found an old piece of wood at possibly a neighbor’s house or garage when he was salvaging some of their old wood. It had the curvy time period shape we were looking for to build the TV cabinets with. He used it as a template and cut out the old reclaimed wood we were using for those cabinets.

man working with old reclaimed pine wood

In a prior blog and video, we shared how one of our neighbors was getting ready to tear down their old garage and asked us if we wanted the original shiplap and antique pine wood in there. This was Nate removing and salvaging it so that we could reuse it in our cottage. Such a gem to have reclaimed old original shiplap and pine wood in our home from possibly a hundred years ago!

USING RECLAIMED WOOD FOR THE BUILT-INS

One thing to note is that Nate worked really hard and spent a lot of time restoring the old reclaimed wood he salvaged from different places. Looking back, I can’t believe we did all this. On one hand, it’s amazing and unique to have the old original wood in our little pine cottage. Yet, on the other hand, you sometimes question if it was worth all the time and effort.

This is something to definitely consider if you are planning to do the same. It may really depend on the time you have and the effort you are willing to put into it. If you want to save money and have access to free reclaimed wood, then this may be your answer. If you have the money and less time, then we’ve also found options to purchase new pine shiplap and beadboard that are good quality. We’ll get to that more in a future blog.

CREATIVE DESIGN FOR LIVING ROOM BUILT-IN

As you can see, there is a PVC pipe with wires coming out of it in the middle of the living room built-in where the TV would be placed. This was a creative design Nate discovered that worked out really well for something like this.

man building living room entertainment center built-in with old reclaimed pine wood

He used PVC piping with 90 degree elbows behind the drywall where the TV would be placed and secured them to the studs inside the wall. This was a great way to be able to run the wires behind the TV, through the wall, and coming back into the cabinet below the TV.

diagram of pvc piping behind built-in drywall to hide wires

That is something I’ve notice about my husband. His attention to detail with all these things and thinking ahead. I may not have thought of this, and if you haven’t either, it may be something to consider especially if you are building an entertainment center built-in that requires a lot of wiring. We also hide our internet wires through there as well.

RECLAIMED PINE VS NEW PINE STRATEGY

For the kitchen built-in cabinets, Nate used brand new 1×10 pine for the frame only because that portion will not be visible to the eye. He used all reclaimed pine for all the parts you can see. So that what you can see is mostly the old original reclaimed pine.

frame of diy kitchen cabinet built-in — New Pine Wood

man adding reclaimed pine to frame of diy kitchen cabinet built-in — Reclaimed wood on top of the new pine wood.

He carried this into the living room built-in as well. Where the main structure of the built-in was built with new wood and the pieces that went over it were the old reclaimed pine wood.

reclaimed pine around living room entertainment center built-in

This strategy gave the built-ins more of an antique look maintaining the time period while adding so much character to the build. We had previously installed reclaimed pine shiplap on our walls and reclaimed beadboard on our vaulted ceiling. These new built-ins complimented the little pine cottage theme that was starting to come together throughout our cozy home.

COMPLETED BUILT-INS COMING UP NEXT

In the next blog, I will share how the built-ins were completed and photos of the finished projects.

This was definitely a labor of love project. It may not be for everyone, but a fun build if you are looking for a creative project. And also want to add more functionality to your small space.

Materials & Tools We Used

Cordless Drill: This was used to quickly screw in screws while building DIY built-ins.
Table Saw: This was used to cut pieces of wood (new and reclaimed) for our built-in projects.
Jig Saw: This was used to cut the wavy lines from the old wood template on our reclaimed pine wood.
Clamps: This was used to clamp reclaimed wood together that we were working to repair.
Hole Saw: This was used to cut a hole in the reclaimed shiplap and drywall to make an opening for the PVC pipe that housed TV and internet wires.
Circular Saw: This was used to cut wood for the built-in project.
Nail Gun: This was used to quickly add nails to our built-in cabinets.
Electric Sander: This was used to quickly sand the reclaimed wood we used and were repairing.

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small cottage living room and kitchen with reclaimed shiplap and beadboard built-ins and small cottage living room and kitchen diagram

CHECK OUT OUR VIDEOS

Thanks for joining us on this journey! We hope that you will find inspiration watching us learn as we go while we’re attempting to renovate and rebuild this old small historic cottage mostly on our own~ while working full time jobs! Stay tuned for more progress updates ahead. Read more about us here.

You can also watch a video about this here.