Mirrored sliding doors; a rod and a particle board shelf; plastic shelving units; modular wire shelves. All functional yes, but there’s nothing sexy about any of them. As home sizes decrease in urban centres and condominium housing becomes more commonplace, the need for organized storage has skyrocketed. You can work with off-the-rack basics from a big-box retailer and try to make things fit, but you are never going to be able to completely maximize things — or impress your family, friends, that hot date…or even yourself, in the process. However, customized, well-thought-out, and beautifully executed millwork in your home will check off all the right boxes.
Space blend
With less square footage comes less defined rooms and more open-concept blending. This is also very true in today’s condo suites. Bachelor, efficiency and micro-suites often combine cooking, eating, sleeping and entertainment spaces without any divisions whatsoever. When your kitchen opens into the dining room or family room, you want to be able to conceal things that are not used daily. There is also a desire to tie the cabinetry together to make the spaces FEEL larger, even when they are not. Using custom millwork with different textures, patterns and styles can define which parts of an open room are to be used for what. It tricks the eye, while providing the continuous benefit of more storage. In this condo, interior designer, Laura Thornton, used a leather finish, a smooth painted finish and reeded wood to define the kitchen and less-often-used upper cabinets, from the family room millwork that housed the multi-media components and a television.
Work versus play
Without saying the word pandemic ever again, we all know the home has given rise to a massive work-from-home phenomenon. Even if you aren’t one of the 25 to 35 per cent of people still working from home, we all could use a space to organize our personal business. Utility payments, property taxes, RRSP contributions and million-dollar side hustles and/or social media influencer accounts can all benefit from a formal workspace. Integrating a desk and a paper filing system can help professionalize that work and make it a bit more fun and stylish in the process.
Other work in the home that can be a real drag is laundry and general cleaning. Since outsourcing this work can be expensive, we prefer to upgrade it, so you feel really stylish while doing it. Concealing laundry behind custom bi-folding pocket doors ensures you don’t have to think about those chores every time you or your guests pass by them. It also helps with traffic flow when you are in the middle of doing the work and you can slide those doors out of the way. This laundry and linen closet work hard, so you don’t have to (who’s kidding who, we are all desperately waiting for the Jetson’s Rosey the Robot maid to launch).
Cubic foot versus linear foot
If, like in this condo, you have tall ceilings (a whopping 10-ft.-tall in this instance), you have a volume of space that if exploited, can offer tremendous storage opportunities. Integrate a rolling library ladder for access and you look smart AND stylish! Space above typical stock, off-the-shelf cabinets is a wasted dust catcher. Carrying millwork to the ceiling draws your eyes up and really accentuates the feature. This cascading box depth that Thornton designed also adds visual interest and a way to break up the monotony of a single surface. The use of height in the bedroom and the main living areas quickly doubled the amount of cabinet space you would otherwise get. While you won’t be reaching for things in the upper cabinets as frequently, the integration of a rolling library ladder makes it a stylish possibility if you do need to grab things from the top. Covering those cabinets with doors keeps them dust free, and also ensures that the contents are not always on display, so even when it’s not housing something beautiful, it will still look organized and beautiful for the occupants of the room, delivering a sophisticated calm.
Glam jam
If you are going for custom millwork, you have a great opportunity to make it truly pop and unique with the use of high-end flashy hardware, undercabinet and in-cabinet lighting, motion and door catch switches, slab stone, intricate tile and even wallpaper. Dress it up if you are fancy, or tone it down if you prefer a demure aesthetic. Either way, with a custom approach, you’re sure to express your style.
Final thoughts
Why pick off-the-rack when choosing storage solutions, when you can go customized, use every inch of space and dress it up to hide anything and everything you need to store? The key is in the design and planning to ensure it functions to fit the things you have or plan to acquire for your home.
When planning your own space-maximizing home project, remember there is real value in working with a professional to design and build the space.