Making a Wardrobe a Built-in

I’m not one to refuse free furniture to make over, and our guest room badly needed a closet/storage. So, when my aunt offered to give me her big IKEA wardrobe, I was happy to enlist my husband, brother, dad, uncle, and cousin to move it. Haha – it was heavy and awkward!

Step 1: Plan and position. Our guest room has a very low ceiling where a conduit runs overhead, so I knew there was limited wiggle room. But it fit!

I decided to line up the main body of the wardrobe with the end/side of the conduit overhead, and the decorative parts would stick out farther. It just looked best that way and added to the illusion that it was a built-in. That positioning left me with an 11-inch gap between the other side of the wardrobe and the wall in the corner. Here, I planned to make 3 open shelves that would go the full depth of the wardrobe.

For the top, I had 10 inches of space. It seemed a waste to close it off entirely, so I decided to build side “walls” that would line up with the main body of the wardrobe. The back wall and ceiling would work as the rest of this long, open shelf space.

As for my painting plan, I decided to use the same green that I’d used on our guest bathroom’s vanity (as well as the base color for my shower panels). I also had a few door pulls left from that vanity, so that would further coordinate all our guest room features.

For the center mirror door, I decided to leave that the “natural” wood color of the original IKEA wardrobe. This would make the mirror really stand out and also break up all the green. The mirror door was also the “wood” in the best shape – I needed to paint the rest of it.

I didn’t want to leave the doors plain, especially since I’d decorated the main doors of the guest room in a way that I’d always intended to duplicate on the closet/wardrobe for that room. I remembered how I’d done it, and I just needed those same materials.

After a quick shopping trip to Lowe’s (where I forgot to use a Christmas gift card 🤦‍♀️), I ended up only spending $100 for this whole project! So, if you have a wardrobe and some spare paint, you can easily make this happen for around $100!

Step 2: Add decorative pieces to the original wardrobe. With my plan in mind, I started with the fronts of the wardrobe doors. First, I took a whole bunch of thin bamboo sticks and hot glued them across the 2 outer doors, keeping them inside the doors’ surrounding border pieces. I started by using a level and making a line at the height that matched what I’d done on the guest room’s main doors – 28 inches (somewhat arbitrarily). Taking 2 sticks at a time, I glued them on across the doors, with the tops along that line I’d drawn. It took a little while, and I of course burned my fingers, but I knew the end result would be cool.

Next, I needed 4 pieces of my really decorative moulding to be 11 inches, fitting across the door fronts to cover the tops and bottoms of my bamboo sticks. I placed these at the same height and spacing as what I’d done on my main doors. I used both wood glue and a few short nails from my nail gun to hold these on.

I also took my very fancy moulding and cut a piece to 48 inches, and this I used to cover the base of the original wardrobe. (I also had to run it through my table saw to make it a little more narrow so that it wouldn’t stick up and get in the doors’ way. So, if your moulding is too wide, cutting it down is a quick fix.) This nicely covered the whole bottom and added a decorative touch that matches the doors.

Step 3: Add braces for top space and side shelves. Copying the general idea of what I’d done in my master closet, I cut 2 braces for each of my 3 desired open side shelves, so that meant 6 pieces of 1x2s at 20 inches. My wardrobe was about 21 inches deep before the front corner piece, so I wanted to place the braces all the way against the back wall, leaving a little space at the front so a decorative piece would be able to fit across. That’s why I cut the braces to 20 inches rather than the full 21 of the wardrobe’s depth.

I eyeballed where I wanted the 3 shelves, and I started at the top. Using a level, I made a straight line along where the brace needed to go on the wall. Across from that, on the wardrobe’s side, I drew another line for that brace. (I found this second brace’s placement by measuring from the ceiling to my line on the wall across from it.) I repeated this for the 2 lower shelves’ braces.

Once I had my marks, I took each 20-inch brace and used a little wood glue on each, held them in place under the lines I’d marked, and then used a few nails from my nail gun to secure them in place.

Easy.

For the open shelf space that I was adding to the top of the wardrobe, I again needed 20-inch pieces of 1x2s. I needed 4, placing 2 at each side, top and bottom, again all the way against the back wall to leave some room up front.

Starting with the bottom piece that would be on the main room’s side, I lay one on the top of the wardrobe. I had to be sure the end result would line up with the edge of the conduit, so I needed to leave room for my piece of 1/8 inch plywood to run straight up and down from the wardrobe to the ceiling/underside of the conduit. (This would be the side that needed to sell the idea that everything was one piece with the original wardrobe.) Basically, I held my 1×2 in place while holding a level and lining it up with the edge of the conduit, then leaving 1/8 inch of room. (See picture once this plywood is on, below.) I again used wood glue and a few brad nails to hold this bottom piece in place.

Going across to the other side of the wardrobe, I placed that bottom piece the same distance from the edge of the wardrobe – about 2 inches – and secured it in place.

For the top brace pieces, I used my level and made sure the top pieces were directly over the bottom pieces. Again, glue and a few brad nails secured these pieces onto the ceiling.

That was it for my braces. (It’s actually easier than I make it sound, I once you get going.)

Step 4: Add shelves and top sides. Using 1/8 inch plywood, I use my table saw and cut 3 pieces for my shelves. These were 10.75 inches wide and 20 inches deep. That meant I had a little wiggle room to fit them in my 11-inch wide space, but they went the whole 20 inches along my braces, again leaving a little room up front to add decorate pieces.

I set these shelves in place and nailed them onto the braces.

For the top of the wardrobe, I needed a piece of plywood standing up against the top and bottom braces to create each side. My space was 10 inches, so I cut just short of 10 inches high (in case my ceiling was uneven), again making the pieces 20 inches deep. I held these against the outside of the braces and nailed them in place, making sure they connected with the back wall and didn’t stick out beyond the braces at the front.

Step 5: Add last decorative pieces. Remember how we left room at the fronts? I took some matching decorative moulding and cut pieces for the fronts of each of my 3 shelves. These were the full 11 inches long. I held each piece so that the top sat flush against the plywood going across the shelf, and I made sure they sat flat against the ends of the 1×2 braces. Then, I nailed each piece into the ends of the 1x2s. These ended up fitting perfectly to sit slightly behind the front corner of the original wardrobe.

For the top, I took 2 scrap pieces of wood that were wide enough to cover the ends of the 1×2 braces and also the plywood sides. I cut these just under 10 inches to go from the top of the wardrobe to the ceiling. Be SURE these are level, because they need to make the original wardrobe and your new top space look lined up. Nail them into the ends of the 1×2 braces, one for each side.

For the very top along the ceiling, I measured the decorative piece that had been the top of the original wardrobe. This was 52 inches, so I cut a piece of my matching decorative moulding to 52 inches. I held this against the ceiling, lined up the ends with the ends of the original wardrobe’s top piece, and nailed it into the wood pieces I’d just attached to the front sides.

For my new top side facing the main part of the room, I used bamboo sticks, cut them to the right length, and ran them across the side and also around the little piece on the front. I also took two pieces of 21-inch 1×2 to border this side. I placed one along the top of the bamboo sticks, where the side met the ceiling/conduit, lining it up behind that front moulding piece that sticks out. The other 1×2 piece I placed along the bottom of the bamboo sticks, setting it right on top of the original wardrobe’s decorative part that stuck out.

I then took a short, 2.5 inch piece of moulding and put that at the bottom of the bamboo sticks on the top front piece. This mirrored the long moulding piece across the top.

I didn’t bother with all of this for the other top side since that faces the wall, but I did add bamboo sticks to the other side’s front piece. I then finished it off with another 2.5 inch piece of moulding across the front piece.

(All of this decorative work on the sides was actually done later, hence the paint in the pictures above, but now would have been the better time to do it so everything was painted at the same time. 😜)

Step 6: Prep, paint, and prime. If you haven’t already, remove any door pulls/handles.

I don’t normally use painters tape, but I did here because everything was so tight against the ceiling and the carpeted floor. I also didn’t want to paint the inside of the wardrobe, so I taped off along the bottom edge. This took a while, but better safe than super-messy.

I also went over all of my new wood with a little sander to get off any rough bits. A few areas needed wood filler – between one of my shelves and the front piece to fill a gap, and also all my nail holes.

Once everything was ready, I took a little brush and gave the original wardrobe a quick coat of primer.

Once this was dry, I took another little brush and started painting everything with my green paint. I was careful along the edges of the doors, but everything else was easy because of my taping.

Once I had the whole wardrobe, shelves, and new top sides and moulding done, I painted the back wall and ceiling inside my top space. This helped it look like it was part of the wardrobe without having to add more wood in there. This works because it’s so high and deep that no one will ever really see back in there clearly anyway.

I ended up letting it dry and then doing a second coat over everything, just to be safe.

Step 7: Replace hardware. With the paint dry, I removed all the tape. It looked good! The last thing to do was to put the door pulls on. I used the original one for the mirror door and put my 2 new pulls on the outside doors, and I like how that also helps set off the mirror.

All done! Out extra blankets, air mattresses, sheets, towels, etc. all fit so nicely in here now, plus there’s room for more if I need it! I’ve had this project in mind for a long time, so I’m thrilled it finally worked so well.

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