DIY Mud Room Part 2: Adding Mudroom Locker Cabinets

After building the mudroom bench, it’s time to add the mudroom locker cabinets. The bench serves as the base for the lockers, and the cabinets serve as the top. Reaching the ceiling gives the DIY mudroom build look really custom and finished.

See how easy it is to use stock cabinets as built ins for the locker top!

Missed the mudroom bench build? See it here >> DIY Mud Room Part 1: DIY Mudroom Bench

Adding Mudroom Locker Cabinets

These locker cabinets serve a couple of functions, they not only look great and finish the job nicely but they also provide ample storage behind closed doors.

I love having storage everywhere, and I really like storage that I can close a door on that others won’t see. The end result of this looks really great too.

What you need:

• 2 stock kitchen cabinets from Lowe’s
• Stix primer
• paint
• foam roller
• 1×4 common board
• nail gun
• drill
• interior screws
• level
• stud finder
• painters tape (optional)

How to plan the stock cabinet installation:

Planning is essential to a project. As much as I enjoy drawing out my projects to scale on graph paper (old school), I am a visual person and really need to see a layout in a room.

I like to use painters tape to mark off the room where items will go. This helps me visualize the project and determine any tweaks I want to make to the plan.

Additionally, I agonized over whether or not to paint these cabinets a different color than the lockers, so painting inside the painters tape helped me make this decision as well.

The bench is built at this point, so I taped out the top of the wall above where the lockers will be. This helped me determine that I wanted to space them apart adding floating shelves in between, and that I did want to paint them to match the bench.

How to install stock wall cabinets as mudroom locker cabinets:

This was the first time I had installed stock wall cabinets anywhere. I used stock cabinets for the living room built ins, bu they were just on the floor with trim around them.

I watched a few videos about installing wall cabinets, and went for it. They look great and it was an easy process!

Prior to installing the cabinets, remove the doors then prime and paint the cabinets and doors. Once dry, they are ready to install.

Step 1

Attach a 1×4 common board to the wall as a support for the cabinets with a nail gun.

Make sure this board is level, and you have measured exactly where the cabinet bottom will meet the support board.

Step 2

Find the studs in the wall with a stud finder and mark each one.

Measure where they are and using those measurements, mark where they will hit the cabinets.

Place a small ‘x’ with a pencil inside the cabinet where the stud will be so you have a place to drill through.

Step 3

Place the cabinet on the wall resting it on the support board. I chose to use the nail gun to temporarily nail the cabinet to the wall allowing me to work with a more secure cabinet while I drilled it to the wall and made sure it was level.

Finding the ‘x”s that were marked denoting a stud in the wall, drill a long screw through the cabinet into the stud at the top, middle and bottom of the cabinet back. Repeat this wherever the cabinet touches a stud.

Step 4:

Replace the cabinets doors, and touch up any paint that has been knicked in the process.

At this point, the cabinet should be in and you can repeat this process with any remaining cabinets to install.

Remove the support board by pulling it off of the wall (it should come out easily).

Next, install the lockers!

DIY Mudroom Build Series

• DIY Mud Room Part 1: DIY Mudroom Bench
• DIY Mud Room Part 2: Adding Mudroom Locker Cabinets (currently reading)
• DIY Mud Room Part 3: DIY Mudroom Lockers
• DIY Mud Room Part 4: DIY Peg Rail with Board and Batten (coming soon)
• DIY Mud Room: A Corner Bench with Lockers and Cabinets (coming soon)