The Entry
Functional first impression
B E F O R E
A F T E R
When we moved into our new-construction condo in Brooklyn, the foyer or entryway was an empty white box. Yes, it was clean and bright, but it lacked any warmth or character or closet space! There was a niche that we believe was intended for a built-in closet but the builder did not frame one out.
This was one of my first major projects mostly because we had a family of 4 to unpack and nowhere to put any of our belongings. As you know, living amongst boxes is chaos, even more chaotic with 2 small children. But, given that I’m a maximizer, I really wanted to map out all the built-ins at the same time so I could achieve some economies of scale with purchase at volume (versus one built-in project at a time). At the very least, save on freight shipping because cabinets and doors are heavy and freight charges can be so high you wonder if there is a world where you can go pick it up yourself.
At the time, I heard a lot about a company called Semihandmade that designed custom door fronts for Ikea Sektion cabinets. I was pretty sure that I wanted to order from Semihandmade and made a trip to the showroom and ordered samples from them just to be sure. When investing in larger-scale projects, it always makes sense to do the extra legwork and get the samples. Any mistakes will be much more expensive to correct in the long run. Trust me.
Ikea has a Sektion kitchen planner on their website. At the time, Semihandmade was only offering door fronts for Sektion cabinets. Now, they offer doors for nearly all Ikea lines (please check their site to be sure!) as well as their own in-house line of cabinetry. I designed 3 separate sets of built-ins (small walk-in closet, entry closet and living room media center) but we’ll focus on the entry closet for this article.
The options are limitless so I started by creating a list of every item I wanted to store in this entry closet. This is what I hoped to store in our entry closet:
microwave
toaster
pantry canned and dried goods
coats
shoes
ski gear
suitcases
printer
I know, this list may sound odd to most but city living means fewer rooms and fewer dedicated spaces so I was determined to make the best use of this wall of storage.
I spent a good amount of time designing with the Ikea Kitchen Planner and then I mapped out what items would go where to ensure everything was accounted for. Finally, I spent probably too much time agonizing over what color cabinet doors and what profile to choose. I consider this the fun part so the maximizer in me needs to try every conceivable variation before I land on a final design solution. My final choice was to do a mix of slab (flat panel) and quarterline (slim shaker) doors.
THE DECISIONS
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THE MOODBOARD
THE SOURCES
