Adding pre-fabricated cabinets to organize your home office

Adding pre-fabricated cabinets to organize your home office brings in form, function, organization and a clean, crisp aesthetic.

I can’t take credit for this post, although I will (braggingly) say that this build was inspired by my home office built-ins! (I love when readers try my ideas!)

In this case the reader is my Step-Dad, who took the clutter out of their attic office, by adding pre-fabricated cabinets to organize their home office.

This article is contributed (photos and all) by him and I had to share in case you wanted the same look and organization, without attempting the giant build of my built-ins.

We had a really messy, cluttered office and could not find anything when we wanted it. We cleared the area to see what we had to work with. About 11’ of wall length with a TV cable outlet and a power outlet.

We decided that adding pre-fabricated cabinets to organize our home office would give us additional storage, function and form. We found pre-fabricated cabinets at Lowe’s that offered what we wanted for storage space, aesthetics, and as the base for a countertop.

We had to build a foundation or base to elevate the cabinets off the floor so that the doors could swing open, unimpeded, provide a toe space, and elevate the cabinets so that the countertop would be at a good working height.

The laminated countertop we purchased (also from Lowe’s) was 96” long.

In order to allow a 2” toe space at each end, we made our base platform only 92” long. The base was made of two 2 x 4 pieces, 92” long.

The depth of the cabinets we purchased was 12 ½”, including the ¾” doors. We wanted our countertop to be 17” deep, with a 2” overhang in the front of the doors. So, we made our 2 x 4 base 14 ½” deep, and pushed it right back against the baseboard. We perched the cabinets at the front edge of the base, so that the ¾” door would hang cantilevered in order to allow it to clear when it swung open. This way, when we dropped the 17” wide countertop on, we had a 2” overhang.The 2 x 4 pieces were tacked together with a 4” nail at each joint or corner, and then we clad the base structure with 3 ½” pre-painted molding, tacked on with a few 1 ¼” finishing nails.

Before placing the cabinets on the 2 x 4 base, we plugged an electrical extension cord into what will become a buried outlet.

We purchased a cabinet which was meant to be wall- mounted…30’H x 12”D x 36”W, with 2 adjustable shelves. We bought a 96” x 25” mahogany laminated countertop, and ripped off two pieces which were 96” x 1 ½”, which were going to be used to elevate the countertop above the cabinets, in order to allow the cabinet doors to swing open, and also, to raise the counter to a proper height.

We sat our two cabinets in proper configuration on top of our 2 x 4 base, hanging over by 2” at the ends, separated by a 2’ long piece of shelf material, in the middle area, where we were going to have open shelving.

We placed our 96” x 1 ½” strips on top of the cabinets, and screwed them into the top of the cabinets with 2” screws, to hold everything in alignment.

We dropped our laminated countertop in place. We screwed from underneath, through the cabinet tops, using 3 ½”, #8 screws to anchor the countertop.

Adding pre-fabricated cabinets to organize your home office was a simple project that took less than an afternoon and the results speak for themselves; storage, organization, a clean-crisp look and a new work surface that we didn’t have before.