Space Age Closets & Custom Cabinetry has designed and installed custom built-ins for homes across Toronto and the GTA since 1989, and whenever our installers finish a project, we try to photograph it before we pack up. The six installations below are all real client projects, and each one carries a lesson worth borrowing for your own home, about awkward spaces, colour, balance, and rooms that do two jobs. Consider this a walking tour of what custom cabinetry can actually solve.
The Awkward Space, Filled to the Inch
One of the most common reasons clients call us is an awkward space that no store-bought furniture will fit. This project is a perfect example: an odd stretch of wall that became a fitted unit using every square inch, right to the ceiling. The lesson is that awkward is exactly what custom cabinetry is for. Because each piece is custom-built to measure, the leftover corners, offsets, and not-quite-standard walls that defeat ready-made furniture become the most useful storage in the house.
A Built-In Bar That Looks Original to the House
This unit looks as if it had always been there, which is the highest compliment a built-in can earn. A small nook in the middle keeps the composition balanced, and the right-hand section hides a pull-down door for a home bar; the client had a stone counter on order to finish it. The lesson: design the built-in around how you actually entertain, and coordinate it with the other trades. Leaving the right allowance for a future countertop is the kind of planning that makes the finished room feel inevitable.
Twin Units That Tamed a Basement
Basements are where awkward spaces multiply, with bulkheads, posts, and windows in inconvenient places. Here we built a symmetrical pair of units, and the balance does as much work as the storage: matching cabinetry on either side makes a basement read as a designed room instead of a place where furniture went to retire. The lesson is that symmetry is a storage strategy. When a space feels chaotic, twin built-ins calm it down while quietly swallowing an enormous amount of clutter.
An Entry Built for Kids and Coats
Lots of kids means lots of coats, and this entry unit solves both with hooks, a modern take on an old-fashioned idea that children will actually use. Closed doors on the left hide the small stuff, a custom beaded backing behind the hooks gives that tailored look, and flat moulding below with a fitted cornice at the ceiling ties the piece into the house. Notice the rounded shelf edge, too: no sharp corners at little-one height. The lesson is that details do the heavy lifting, in polish and in safety. It’s the same thinking behind our custom mudroom built-ins in Toronto.
A Murphy Bed in Chocolate Pear
We love return clients, and this one came back wanting a Murphy wall bed, with one condition: no white. Since we can finish cabinetry in almost any colour, we built it in a rich chocolate pear, with custom drawers and cubbies on either side, and the room became genuinely dual-purpose. Two lessons here. First, white is a default, not a rule; a warm woodgrain can make a built-in feel like fine furniture. Second, a wall bed is the single fastest way to give a spare room a second job.
A Home Office With a Garden View
Would you love an office that looks out over your manicured backyard? This client claimed her home’s brightest multi-window room for exactly that, and we built the cabinetry around the view rather than against it. An electric fireplace keeps the glassy space toasty through a GTA winter, and the soft green walls carry the garden’s calm indoors. The lesson: put the desk where you actually want to spend your day, then design the storage to suit the room, not the other way around.
What Every One of These Projects Shares
Different rooms, different finishes, one method: each piece was measured for its exact wall, custom-built to measure, and designed and installed by our own team. That’s why every unit above looks original to its house, whether it’s hiding a bar, a bed, or a hundred coats. We have plenty more photos to share in the future, but hopefully these six have given you a taste of what’s possible in your own home.
Custom Cabinetry Project Questions, Answered
Can custom cabinetry really work in awkward spaces like basements and alcoves?
Awkward spaces are where custom cabinetry makes the strongest case for itself. Because every unit is measured and built for its exact wall, offsets, bulkheads, and odd corners that defeat ready-made furniture become fully fitted storage, right to the ceiling. Several of the projects above began as exactly that kind of leftover space.
Do custom built-ins have to be white?
Not at all. White suits many rooms, but we can finish cabinetry in almost any colour or woodgrain, like the chocolate pear Murphy bed above. Darker and warmer finishes read as furniture rather than millwork, which is often exactly the look a bedroom or den wants.
Can a built-in include a bar, counter, or workspace?
Yes, built-ins regularly incorporate bar sections with pull-down doors, counters in stone or laminate, and full desk runs. The key is deciding early, so the cabinetry leaves the right allowances for counter thickness, plumbing, or power. Tell your designer how you plan to use the room and the unit is drawn around it.
How does cabinetry make one room serve two purposes?
By building both functions into the same wall. A Murphy bed with flanking drawers and cubbies turns an office into a guest room at night; an entry unit with hooks and closed doors is both coat storage and a tidy hallway. The cabinetry holds each role’s gear so the room switches jobs without a single item moving house.
Do you take on smaller projects, or only full rooms?
Both. Some of the most satisfying projects above are single pieces, one entry unit, one bar cabinet, one fitted alcove. A single well-placed built-in can change how a room works, and smaller projects get the same measuring, design, and installation care as a full dressing room.
See something here you’d like in your own home? Call Space Age Closets & Custom Cabinetry at (647) 394-7557 for a free in-home design consultation. We’ve been designing and installing custom cabinetry across Toronto and the GTA since 1989, with hundreds of satisfied repeat clients.
