Super Simple DIY Shoe Cubby

You know, friends, in every project, there are lessons you learn. And the lesson learned in this project is make sure your build fits through the doorway. Hey guys, today we are working on a problem area in my home. I know a lot of families have areas in their house that just don't work. Well, there's a lot in my house that just don't work. But one that is really important that I really need to get fixed is the entryway shoe closet. So when we first moved in, I thought this area would be great to put our shoes and our socks. And I also hung up some hooks to put backpacks and sweaters and things. But this area is obviously not working because it is just out of control. I put these drawers here because I thought maybe we could also, I don't know, use them to store hats or something for like more storage. I just really wanted to use this closet space well. And yes, first go around, not so good. So today we are building a cubby, a shoe cubby to go in this closet so that the kids can each have their own shoe cubby. And I think that's part of the problem is I really need to train my kids a little bit better. But we're gonna build this shoe cubby. We found the plans online. So there's a lot of pieces to this project, but really it's pretty simple. All we used was a circular saw and a Kreg jig and then our impact driver and some screws. And obviously the wood, you have to get the wood. I'll put all the things that we used for this project in the description below so you guys can check that out. But it was pretty simple. I'm gonna take you through how we built this shoe cubby and how awesome it's working out for our family right now. The first thing we did was cut our plywood. And this was a little tricky because it was so big, but we just leveled it on the floor with a couple different pieces of two by fours that we had laying around. And we made sure our straight edge was clamped on really tight exactly where we needed it and we just went for it. We wanted our shoe cubby to be 18 inches deep. And so we cut our plywood into 18 inch strips. So then we cut that 18 inch strip of wood into six different pieces. We had the top, two for the sides and three shelves. Again, you can see all of these measurements down in the description. Okay, so these are all of our cuts. This is the top piece. These are the three shelves right here. One, two, three. So the top's the full width. This is minus the width of the sides, which are these two right here. And then we have these that are eight inch dividers that are gonna go on the shelves and kind of give it some extra stability. So we had to be a little bit careful with this because we wanted to make sure we had enough wood left over to make eight inch tall dividers for our cubbies. So you just have to pay attention to where you're cutting and how much you'll have left over so that you have all that you need for your cubby dividers. Once we had all of our pieces cut, we got on our Kreg jig and this was our first time using the Kreg jig. So it was a lot of fun figuring it out. It was super, super simple and really satisfying to get that pocket hole in. You just set up your Kreg jig and clamp it down and make sure that it's in the spot that you want. And then you just drill into that hole and it creates this awesome pocket hole so that your screws are hidden from sight when your thing is totally built. So we went through and we did our Kreg jig holes and then we pretty much just assembled it. So we used our cubby dividers to hold up our shelves as we screwed our shelves into the sideboards. And then those dividers just kind of hung out there until we were ready to nail them in. So once we were done screwing all of the shelves in place, then we went back and kind of shimmied the dividers around to make sure they were where we wanted them. And we just went in with a nail and hammer and nailed those into place from the top and from the bottom. Then we sanded it down quite a bit to make sure it was smooth. We filled in the nail holes with a little bit of wood putty and we painted it. So at first I was painting it with a brush. I soon realized this was way too hard. There was too much surface area for me to use a hand brush and I wanted it to be smoother than the brush was giving me. So I did end up having to go back to the hardware store and get a foam roller, which turned out it worked a million times better. So I'm so glad I got a foam roller. So once I started painting this guy, I realized that the front, and I don't know, this is I guess my first time ever using plywood, but like the raw edge of plywood is not pretty at all. I've got some music over here with this guy on my iPad. So I looked up some ways to make the front of plywood look finished. And one way that they said was to put wood filler. So I've got the wood filler I used for the nails on top and I'm just putting it on the fronts like this. I'm not all the way done with it, so we'll see how it turns out. But I'm just kind of like smoothing it across the front and then I'll sand it down once it's all dry. But I think it's gonna make a really big difference. You know, friends, in every project, there are lessons you learn. And the lesson learned in this project is make sure your build fits through the doorway. This particular build is not going to fit very easily in our closet. I wanted to bring it in to paint it, and so I'm putting it in there. And we said, let's just try it out, see if it fits. Problem is this guy right here is chunky and it won't slide in like we want. It will fit. It'll fit inside. We just can't get it past the molding around the door. So we're gonna try and pry it off and see if that works. Otherwise, I don't know what we will do. So Zach had to end up taking off a whole side part of the doorway to the closet, like the closet doorway, and that was kind of tricky. But in the end, he was able to get it all off and put it all back on once we got the shelf in. So I guess every single, like every house project is gonna have some kind of weird situation that you have to work through. But it worked out really well, and we're so happy with how it turned out. Oh, it's awesome. There you go, there it is. The kids have actually been really good these past couple of days putting their shoes in their spot. I think kids really like having those types of boundaries and instruction. Like, I just feel like that's somehow, sometimes how my kids are. They like having those systems in place so they know what to do, and so I'm not constantly getting on their case for throwing their shoe in the wrong spot or their socks are flying everywhere. We're still working on it, but definitely a step up with this cubby. And it also works as a place for their backpacks and for our baby carrier, which has also been awesome because it's just always floating around, and it's so bulky. You know, that baby carrier, it has a home, my diaper bag has a home, the kids' backpacks have a home. I'm so excited about it. If you have any questions about our build, please comment down below, and we'll try our best to answer them. We'll link the build plans that we got online. We'll link those below. But again, I'm just really excited about this change. This little piece of our home was such a distraction to me, and it was such a problem area that it was really affecting my mood, and having it cleared out now, it's just one step closer to just a happier home, so we're super excited about that. Thanks so much for watching, you guys. I hope you enjoyed this video, and I hope that it was helpful. Don't forget to subscribe and click the bell so you know when we post new videos. I post every Saturday morning at 8 a.m. Pacific time, so come back for more next Saturday. We'll see you then. Bye!