Tour of Our Built-Ins and Continuing Work on Little Cottage

This simple tour of our vintage built-ins and continuing work on our little cottage was a lot of work, but so worth it.

woman standing in front of handmade built-in made with reclaimed beadboard

In our past couple blogs, we shared the challenges we had with designing our large shared living room and kitchen wall.

The solution we came up with was to move the office and bedroom doors next to each other in the center of the wall so that the space on the outside of those doors could be designated for the living room and kitchen area and used with more functionality. This also gave us a better spot to place our TV!

woman standing in front of handmade built-ins made with reclaimed shiplap, pine, and beadboard

DESIGNING VINTAGE BUILT-INS WITH RECLAIMED WOOD

After moving those doors, Nate began to design and build living room and kitchen built-ins using reclaimed shiplap and pine wood. And he used antique reclaimed beadboard to build the cabinet doors! They turned out so great, but were definitely a labor of love. We also added another historic touch by working to patina the new slotted head screws we purchased to fit the time period better and match our antique brass hinges.

antique hinges with patina slotted head screws

In this blog, we’ll share more of the work we did behind the built-ins inside the office and main bedroom. A lot of progress was made. And yet, there is still a ways to go.

TOUR OF OUR VINTAGE BUILT-INS

Before we get into that though, let’s take a look at these awesome handmade and uniquely designed built-in cabinets!

Keep in mind though that there are still a few more finishing touches we haven’t gotten to yet and when we do, we’ll share more.

man standing in front of handmade built-in made with reclaimed beadboard drilling wooden knobs

This is how the slotted head screws turned out with a patina look! They really do look like they fit the time period! We will replace all the Phillips screws after we paint the cabinets. Right now they are just primed. We’re thinking we may just paint them Shoji White, which is the same color as our exterior paint color.

Here are the shelves that we also got reclaimed from the same neighbor that provided us with the beadboard. We haven’t decided what to do to cover that drywall in the back yet.

We also added these magnets to keep the cabinet doors closed and those cute little wooden knobs.

reclaimed wood built-in shelves with wooden knobs on beadboard cabinet doors

After a recent Costco run, I added a few things to the cabinets. It has been working really well as a pantry since we don’t have much storage in this small cottage. It’s still a work in progress as we’re trying to figure out how to organize it better. More to come on that! Overall, I’m really happy with it as the main meal prepper in this house! And Nate is proud of his little art projects around here!

Oh, and the cabinets on the living room built-ins has basically become like a junk drawer, but we are also storing our internet router and wires in there. We’ll share more of how we decide to organize it in an upcoming blog.

LITTLE COTTAGE PAINTED GABLES

Now on to some of the other projects around our little pine cottage.

We decided to paint our little green gables the same color as the house as it made it pop more and feel more open than so closed off. We really liked how it turned out. And we are thinking of also painting over all the other green trim so the whole cottage is just one color, Shoji White. It’s a really nice off white and creamy color that goes well with our red roof.

man painting front gable of little cottage

WORKING ON THE BACK OF THE BUILT-INS

Now that our vintage built-ins were mostly completed in the living room and kitchen, it was time to work on the back of them. The living room built-in backs into the office and kitchen built-in into our main bedroom.

Nate worked on the drywall behind them as he essentially had to build new walls extending back a bit to give room for the built-ins in front of the original walls.

Behind each of the built-ins (in the rooms) he plans to place an area for a TV hanging mount. That way both rooms have the option to have a TV on the wall behind the built-ins. This required configuring the wiring behind the new drywall.

man standing in front of wall with drywall and outlet cut outs

And another important factor was making sure the new walls were insulated well so that sound from the living room and kitchen didn’t enter the office and main bedroom as much and vice versa. It’s an extra tedious step, but so worth it for sound proofing.

I was glad to at least help in a small way by helping to pull wires through the drywall cut outs for the TV wires!

man and woman putting up drywall and wires through it

A lot of progress was made, but we took many steps backward to get to this point as well. Typical for us and how we’ve been working on our little pine cottage mostly on our own. As always, learning as we go. Trying our best and building a handmade home. It’s definitely starting to feel like~ home.

Materials & Tools We Used

Cordless Drill: This was used while building DIY built-ins and installing drywall.
Hammer: This was used to install the shiplap on the walls by helping to fit the tongue and groves together.
Paint Roller: This was used to prime the beadboard cabinet doors and our little pine cottage front gable.

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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.