First — holy cow. A very strong earthquake just hit a few minutes ago. It was completely unexpected for our area; we’d never felt anything like this. The epicenter was just outside Richmond, only about 35 miles from our house, and it registered around 5.9. We even heard from friends up in New York who felt it. Miraculously nothing fell off the walls or broke, but the whole house shook violently and it was insanely loud. We all huddled under a steel-reinforced doorway and stared at each other. We were shaken, yes, but very grateful we’re okay and hoping everyone else who felt it is safe too.
Now, about the cabinets. We promised to share other places we searched and the solutions we considered for the office built-ins (mentioned previously) — because the thrift-store cabinets we eventually used weren’t our first finds. Since not everyone will stumble on six matching cabinets for a few bucks (we never thought that was possible until our surprising discovery), we want to detail other realistic options for anyone who can’t find secondhand cabinets that work.
Our first stop was the Richmond Habitat for Humanity ReStore, but cabinets were scarce. While there, Clara discovered she loves the breeze from a big industrial fan.
They also had a massive leather zebra-print lounger that would be great for storytime — clearly very practical.
The cabinet selection at that ReStore nearly made us give up on the idea. Everything was either too tall or too wide, and we couldn’t find six identical cabinets (or three matching double-wide ones) that would make the built-in wall look cohesive instead of mismatched. They did offer to notify us if suitable items came in, which we appreciated.
Next we hauled the kids (and Burger) to Lowe’s and Home Depot to see if stock cabinets could work. They had plenty of affordable unfinished base cabinets in various sizes. Our rough estimate put the cost around $300 for three double-wide cabinets to form left, middle, and right sections with two open spaces for chairs along the built-in wall. We could paint them and top them with a wood counter, creating a long two-person desk. Altogether, it felt like roughly a $400 project for the desk portion — not bad for custom-looking built-ins.
The main problem was cabinet height and depth. Standard base cabinets have the ideal 24″ depth for a counter, but their toe-kicks made them sit around 35″ high — too tall for our 27″ chairs. We considered adding casters to the chairs, but 2″ casters might be okay and 4″ would be excessive. Upper cabinets at about 30″ height were the right stature but only 12″ deep, which would either yield a very narrow desk surface or leave cabinets floating a foot out from the wall unless we bought extra lumber. Not ideal, though fixable.
Then we scoured Craigslist, but nothing matched the right depth or height right away. We didn’t want to compromise stability by cutting cabinets down or building them up awkwardly. If a near-perfect set showed up cheap (like the much-shorter-than-average ReStore cabinets we scored previously), we would have jumped on it — even for around $100. But after checking for several weeks, nothing with the correct dimensions appeared.
Next we visited Ana-White.com to look for DIY plans. There were a few workable designs, but building from scratch often ended up costing more than $30 per cabinet once lumber, hardware, hinges, and interior fittings were considered. Since many secondhand cabinets went for under $30, it made us question whether building would be cheaper than retrofitting used pieces.
We also checked Ikea. From their site it looked possible to build cabinets without a toe-kick, which would give the ideal height (roughly 28–30″) for our chairs. Ikea offered customization, and it started to look like a good solution — though pricier, at about $500 if we added doors and aimed for a cohesive built-in look. We even started mapping things with their online planner, but a planned Ikea trip didn’t happen after we decided to try the Alexandria Habitat ReStore while we were out of town.
The Alexandria ReStore initially felt discouraging: they had more cabinets than the Richmond location, but the prices didn’t scream “take me home.”
That was until we spotted a group in the back with $1 stickers. They practically screamed, “You’d be an idiot not to take us home.” Six cabinets for six dollars total — and that changed everything.
There’s still plenty of work to do on those cabinets, but that’s a project for another day. You know Sherry’s tendency to paint anything that doesn’t move — so stay tuned.
In summary: it was tougher than we expected to find cabinets that were both deep enough (24″) and not too tall (under about 30″). We checked two thrift stores, two home improvement stores, an online DIY plan site, Ikea, and Craigslist. Prices for workable options ranged from roughly $300–$500 at the places that had solutions (not including countertops), which felt like a lot for a desk project for budget-conscious folks like us. In the end we held out and found a dramatically cheaper option. Lesson learned: be patient, check everywhere, and don’t rush into the first solution that’s only “pretty close.”
What have you hunted for after visiting a bunch of stores or researching relentlessly? Do you have a magic number of places to check before you get a great score? Have you been searching for something for months or years that keeps eluding you? It’s funny how the perfect thing often shows up in the last place you look — probably because you stop looking once you find it.
Psst — Sherry did a long interview about how our blog has grown and shared behind-the-scenes blogging and book-writing details for anyone curious. We also chatted on BabyCenter about a lovely little boy’s nursery we visited — that light fixture was one of the coolest we’ve seen in a while.