Basement Built Ins - Cabinet Assembly

I’ve been turning this empty wall in my basement into a storage wall with basement built-ins and a hidden murphy bed! You can see all my plans here. Now, it’s time for cabinet assembly!

I started by retrofitting my Ikea cabinet boxes. They were just a bit too tall fit under the soffit on this wall. I clamped some scrap wood to the cabinet box pieces to ensure a straight line when I went in with my circular saw. I did this right out on my patio so I didn’t have to keep traveling back and forth from my workshop.

After cutting down all the cabinet boxes, I assembled them! PRO TIP – don’t skip putting the backs on your Ikea cabinets! I didn’t want to use the backs of these cabinets. There’s a seam, they’re a bit wonky, and they’re just going against a flat white wall. So I thought I could just not use them but I was sadly mistaken. There’s no stability when you pick them up and they completely collapsed on me!

So, I went back to it and assembled these with all the necessary pieces. Emery helped me nail the backs in. Then the next day, I came down stairs and my little mini-me (Rainie) was assembling drawers for me 🥹

There’s a really odd angle in the ceiling here and I wanted to try and cover it by cutting a cabinet box. So, I made my marks and cut the angle with my circular saw. Then, I assembled the box with the angles I made and it fit perfectly! So satisfying.

*Quick note – a lot of people were concerned about what was behind this angle in the ceiling. I actually cut into the wall to see what was behind there – and there was nothing. So we’re all safe!

Securing the Cabinets

I added a 2×4 where the wall meets the bulk head – it’s screwed into the stud. I screwed all the cabinets into that and then into the bottom stud. I also added a 2×4 where there was a gap along the wall. Then, I cut another piece of wood to cover the entire gap.

Then, I installed all of the boxes Rainie helped me assemble!

Once the cabinet doors are installed, there will be a gap between the ceiling and the cabinet tops. I want to add crown moulding, so I needed to add blocking and fill in the gap. So, I added 1×2’s along the entire ceiling gap.