Design and construction MDF cabinet, by Suzanne

Making your own unique bespoke wall cabinet with TV niche has never been easier. Suzanne shares her experience of creating her design, assembling and painting her unique cabinet. The result is a beautiful eye-catcher for her living room with space for beautiful accessories.

For our living room, we were looking for a sideboard or wall unit where the TV would fit nicely and where I could simultaneously style beautiful accessories and store children's toys invisibly. In the 'standard cabinet collections', we did not succeed in finding a piece of furniture in which we could realise all our wishes. We also preferred a piece of furniture that would be more part of our interior. A nice wall-filling piece of furniture would radiate tranquillity and in terms of style and colour, we could match it perfectly with our interior. We had previously made our own cabinets with wood from TOSIZE.ie and when I heard that they were coming up with a new concept for custom-made cabinets, I was hooked!

On their website you can get inspiration and in the configurator you can finely work on your own design. I first started sketching the old-fashioned way with pen and paper to create a nice division and later converted it digitally into a design. To make the layout, it is important to know in advance which items you want to place. This way, you can already give compartments the right height and width. Besides wanting to style interior decoration in open shelves, I had already decided to make the bottom row with doors for all the children's toys. I also took into account where the electrical socket was, in which compartment the TV should go, this being the largest size compartment, and where the lamp. This way we were prepared to make the holes for all the cords and connections during the construction process. 

After my design was ready, TOSIZE.ie made a final working drawing of this and they did a check if all the compartment sizes were realisable. Very fine and clear this worked! After our final approval, the cabinet went into production and we received all the materials as a compact kit at our home within a short period of time! Meanwhile, they have a 3d configurator online which eliminates the need to make a manual working drawing.

Now it was up to me and my husband Douwe to build our cabinet. The kit really does unwrap like a present. All individual parts are numbered and we first sorted them and put them in order. You also receive all necessary materials such as dowels and screws. So you can get started right away! We hung the work drawing on the wall and started building. I can almost say it was "a piece of cake"! Building is basically self-explanatory, if you follow the drawing properly, you actually work neatly from compartment to compartment. In our case, there was only some challenge in the height, because I necessarily wanted a cupboard practically up to the ceiling. In work, this is not always easy to work above your power and get the top shelves to line up properly. But with some patience and precision, this worked out! In addition, the lower cabinet layer is on adjustable feet, so very handy to adjust the cabinet properly to height size. 

After building the cupboard, it is time for the finishing touches. We paid a lot of attention to this and it also takes quite some time if you really want to do this nicely and well. We sanded the furniture and then put on several layers of primer. Then we filled the seams and connections nicely. For the cabinet, we used a nice durable water-based wood paint from Vestingh. I chose the colour Brown Wood no. 222, a nice soft warm sand shade with matt finish. This paint does not yellow and is abrasion- and scratch-resistant.

You can also choose to finish it with a transparent coating for extra protection. The finish will then shine just a little more. 

I still had beautiful French wallpaper left over from our bedroom, which I also wanted to use in the cupboard. I did not glue it directly to the back wall of the wardrobe, but on sturdy cardboard and placed it in a compartment. This way I am flexible in terms of styling and look in the cupboard and can have it recur in several places as I choose. You can also choose to put the wallpaper in a frame and place it nicely inside the cabinet. As for the finish of the cabinet and styling, you can go wild with your creativity!

260,0 × 256,0 × 40,0 cm