These $30 IKEA Cabinets Can Be More Than Just Nightstands or Bookshelves

Even a novice DIYer can personalize pretty much anything from IKEA to make it look absolutely stunning. You can make freestanding shelves look like built-ins, or turn a $30 cubby into a classy floating nightstand. One place you might not have expected to see an IKEA cubby shelf? Right inside your entryway.

Maggie Mae lives in a charming 800-square-foot apartment in Brooklyn, New York, with her partner, Jesse, that they’ve been renting for about a year-and-a-half. Now that the couple has merged their things, Mae considers their shared style to be “botanical bookish,” perhaps best described as “Virginia Woolf’s Monk’s House meets Brooklyn,” in her own words. “At first it felt like we were trying to meld two wildly different aesthetics, but they work wonderfully together,” says Mae.

Considering all the effort this couple put into making their apartment a home, the couple’s proudest DIY just might be how they found space where there originally wasn’t any in their teeny entryway. There, they used two small, square IKEA cabinets to create storage for items like cold weather accessories or keys, without taking up any floor space at all.

A lot of times, you’ll see people place a console table with a small dish near the door to stash things like keys and change. When you’re working with minimal square footage like Maggie Mae and Jesse though, extra furniture — at least beyond a compact umbrella stand — isn’t always an option. That’s why these cabinets are such a good idea. IKEA gives you an option to buy the cabinets with or without doors, and in this case, doors work best because you can it’s one less space you have to style — and a great way to close a door, literally, on clutter in this transitional space.

If you aren’t convinced these cabinets are the next thing you need to buy from IKEA, then Mae’s bathroom might seal the deal. She mounted the same exact cabinets above the toilet to add bonus storage in the room, again, without imposing on the footprint of the bath all all. This time, the cabinets are mounted side-by-side instead of one on top of the other giving them a slightly different look while providing the same affordable utility.

“We’re extremely proud of how we’ve created storage solutions from thin air in a space with virtually no closets,” Mae says in her house tour. “We’ve really tried to make the most of every square inch.” Yes, the couple did indeed!