How to design purpose built storage (really do need to do this quickly)

[redwellybluewelly]

We have a funny old house, it has been extended twice leaving an odd room/lobby between the kitchen, the playroom and the door to the utility/cloakroom.

Its very hard to describe but I would like to replace the double doors into the playroom with something more modern (they are awful exterior patio doors which clearly came out of a skip 30 years ago!) and also replace the door to the utility/cloakroom.

The room can't be used 'as a room' as it has doors on all four sides but it is a lot of space to waste. I am thinking of having a wall of cupboards built (about a foot or so deep) on the side with a door leading to the cloakroom - along these lines which will turn the room into a propoer lobby/hallway with oodles of potential tucked away storage for craft and paperwork/filing.

wall of cupboards

What I don't know though is how to commission or to even go about designing these cupboards so that they maximise the potential storage, and also how to ensure the replacement doors work with clean crisp lines.

How would you do it?!

Ask a carpenter to come round - he'll be able to suggest how to configure the layout of the storage within the room, and then custom build it for you....go grab the yellow pages now!

Try to go a bit deeper if you can - at least as deep on the internal measurement (allow for door thickness) to store a lever arch file.

Work out what you want to store:
shelf of house paperwork - lever arch files
wellington boots (tall)
sports bags
tennis racquets etc
baskets on shelves for gloves etc

Nothing more annoying than having cupboards built and the discovering they are juuust too narrow for your ironing board, or whatever you want to put inside so measure, measure, measure and decide what's important to you.

Graph paper is useful to draw the space to scale so you can draw different options. Even with a wall of cupboards it still won't be enough to fit everything so you'll have to prioritise. You might want to think about having some drawers although these will be more expensive - baskets on shelves would be cheaper. In which case buy the baskets first and make sure the shelves are made to fit!

As for having them made - google for local cabinet makers etc. Ask 3 to come and show you photos of some of their work and quote. Make sure you give each of them the same details otherwise you won't be getting like-for-like quotes. Most use MDF - completely flat fronted doors will blend in more and look more like a wall if there are already a lot of doors in the space.

Painting them yourself will be cheaper, but it will take you a while!

Thank you both - I have 2 carpenters, both joiners rather than cabinet makers as such so I'll go get the YP!

I have measured a few things such as the DVDs, my sewing machine, the wicker baskets which I keep material in and the various box files etc. As you say there would be nothing more irritating that designing it and finding something didn;t fit - which I could well see happening!

Ha ha - rang the carpenter I know best and he was doing quotes today as his work had got called off and so he has measured up and will get back to me. He thinks that the work needed to do the doors is not as straightforward as they have been buggered about with altered and so we would need a new door frame as well.

As far as the sizing goes once we sat down with pencil and paper and a tape measure it did all come together, as we want something plain with doors not shelves then it will be cheaper and we will have a timber frame with an MDF base.