Built-ins are one of the most loved parts of a custom home, and for good reason. They are furniture, cabinetry, shelving, storage, and architectural features that become part of the house itself. Kitchen cabinets and bathroom vanities count, but when most people talk about built-ins, they mean the fun pieces: bookcases, mudroom storage, pantry systems, bars, room dividers, fireplace walls, hidden doors, and custom storage moments.
A good built-in solves more than one problem. Sometimes it hides structure, a chase, or a mechanical need. Other times it turns an awkward space into something useful. In older homes, tight townhouses, and renovations where adding square footage is not possible, built-ins can make every inch work harder. Storage can be hidden in plain sight, so board games, extra blankets, shoes, bathroom supplies, and pantry items all have a place without cluttering the room.
Custom built-ins are especially helpful when they are designed around the way people actually live. A mudroom drop zone can include a place for mail and a shredder. A narrow wall can become a shallow can pantry. Eaves can become dressers. A hallway can be lined with closets. A finished basement closet can be sized around storage tubs instead of default dimensions. These details are small, but they make the home easier to use every day.
Built-ins can also add flexibility. One small apartment used a single custom wall to hold a Murphy bed, dining chair storage, folding screens, a laptop station, a printer, and hidden HVAC. That one built-in allowed the space to work as a guest room, office, dining room, and party space. It was not cheap, but it made the apartment live much larger than its square footage.
The episode also looks at cost. Built-ins are often one of the first things cut from a project because they can be done later, but they often do not get added later. Some built-ins need to be planned early, especially pocket gates, hidden doors, fireplace walls, or anything built into framing. Others can be discovered during construction, especially in renovations, when an odd leftover space becomes ski storage, a cubby, or a secret kid fort.
The main point is that built-ins should support real life. They can be simple or elaborate. They can be made by a cabinet shop or built on site by a finish carpenter. They can serve kids, pets, storage, work, entertaining, or daily routines. With thoughtful planning, built-ins make a house feel more personal, more useful, and more fun.
(00:00) Intro
(01:10) Built-ins as part of the architecture
(02:22) Functional built-ins for pantries and mudrooms
(03:45) Storage in plain sight
(05:51) Built-ins that replace furniture
(06:27) Cost and why built-ins get cut
(09:51) Hallway closets and hidden storage
(10:30) Custom dimensions for real storage needs
(12:51) Kid forts, pet storage, and secret compartments
(15:00) Simple built-ins versus custom cabinetry
(16:47) Planning ahead for built-ins
(18:04) Custom projects and discoveries during construction
(19:48) Built-ins as creative design moments
(20:30) Personal details that support daily life
Marilyn Moedinger (00:00):
Hello, and welcome to a snack size episode of Home: The Second Story. I'm Marilyn Moedinger from Runcible Studios in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and Boston, Massachusetts.
Sheri Scott (00:11):
And I'm Sheri Scott with Springhouse Architects in Cincinnati, Ohio. What do we have today?
Marilyn Moedinger (00:16):
We are talking about built-ins. So, everyone loves a built-in. Everybody loves a built-in. When you see pictures of projects and people see, "Oh, look at the built-ins,I love the built-ins."
Sheri Scott (00:28):
They're always the most popular pictures.
Marilyn Moedinger (00:30):
So, let's talk about what is a built-in and sort of why are we dedicating a whole snack to this?So, built-ins are basically pieces of furniture or cabinets or shelving or whatever that are built into the architecture. So, they're not moving anywhere.
So, the most sort of basic built-in, I guess, would be kitchen cabinets or bathroom vanities.Those are sort of built-ins. But generally, when people talk about built-ins, they're talking about shelving or entertainment centers or bars or like kind of the fun stuff.
Sheri Scott (01:07):
A mudroom.
Marilyn Moedinger (01:08):
Yes, a mudroom.
Sheri Scott (01:10):
Pantry, system.
Marilyn Moedinger (01:11):
Sculleries, the whole thing.So, we're talking about all of that kind of stuff. Also room dividers, like open space. You might build one of those super cool craftsman style like half bookcase, half arch thing. So built-ins. These are things that usually fall under the architect's scope if they're doing the interiors. Because they are architectural.
So, that could mean, for example, that sometimes, like I just mentioned, that sort of room divider thing with a half bookshelf, half arch, whatever, with columns, a lot of times that's in place because those are actual structural columns holding up a beam, and we make a built-in to kind of make it into a moment, or just not have a random column dropping in the middle of the space.
So, a lot of times built-ins are there because they are structural or they're hiding structure, or they are hiding chases, or other sort of mechanical things and it creates maybe a funny shape and we use a built-in to kind of hide that. So, there's technical reasons that are deeply related to the architecture.
Sheri Scott (02:22):
And the other side of that is when they're highly functional. So, I'm just thinking of some of the built-ins that we design and a lot of times, they are the more functional pieces because in new construction these days with wood trusses, we can span from front to back of a building. And we don't have a lot of interior columns unless you have a second story, and that's another story.
But pantries these days, we're getting into a lot of detailing of storage in pantries, food storage, appliance storage, those kinds of things, and mudroom.We always do built-ins in mudrooms. People want to come in through their garage or an accessory door and have a place to drop the mail.
I just had a client come in, we're talking big things, number of bedrooms and bathrooms and what their shower is and the normal big things. And she's like, "This seems really strange but it's so important to me. I want a place when I walk in the door, the very first thing is a place to put the mail and a shredder under it, otherwise, it never gets shredded." She's like, "I just want to drop it right in the shredder and not put it down twice."
So, those kinds of things, designing for built-ins is kind of fun. The highly functional pieces I like.
Marilyn Moedinger (03:45):
Absolutely. They play a really big part in a lot of the work we do. So, we do a ton of renovations in old houses, and that means that space is at a premium and we're often working in houses that we can't add on to.
So, they might be townhouses or they're really tight spaces in the Boston area. And that means that if we're trying to fit four bedrooms, four and a half baths and all the family spaces in 3,000 square feet or 2,500 square feet or even less, then we need to get creative with storage.
So, we call it storage in plain sight, where we create all sorts of beautiful built-ins that as soon as you open them, you're like, "Oh, in the living room, that's where all the board games and all that stuff are. Oh, that's where the extra pillows and blankets are, or that's where all the shoes are for the mudroom, or that's where all the bathroom supplies are or whatever the case may be."
So, we will find space for a built-in in just about any kind of tiny little nook or cranny. So, one of my favorites is we've done a few times, we call it a can pantry.So, if you have even three or four inches of depth clear, so like six inches, then we'll put in a tiny cabinet that's six inches deep, four inches on the inside.
Sheri Scott (05:10):
I love that.
Marilyn Moedinger (05:11):
And it's just big and wide.It looks like a picture frame. It's like big and it's a slab of wood, a beautiful piece of walnut or it's a painted shaker, whatever. It looks like the cabinetry, and you open it and it's literally one can deep.
Sheri Scott (05:26):
Yeah, you don't get it lost. Don't get the beets lost in the back for two years (laughs).
Marilyn Moedinger (05:31):
The beets. Nobody loses any beets in my projects. But the thing that's cool about it is I can fit that in the depth of a wall.So, finding every last little scrap of space to tuck things is one of my most favorite things ever.
Sheri Scott (05:50):
Yeah, that's cool.
Marilyn Moedinger (05:51):
I love it.So, eaves storage, my website is full of all these little things that we've done over the years, and those types of built-ins, what they're doing is they're replacing furniture at that point. So, if I've built in all the dressers in a tight primary suite because there just isn't a lot of room, but I've got all the eaves, and that's where we put all the dressers, then you don't need to buy a dresser.
So, built-ins have an expense and you can't take it with you, but you can take your dresser with you, but these are forever homes, we're trying to be space conscious. So, yeah, we love a built-in.
Sheri Scott (06:27):
Yeah, we do too. There's so many ways.Now, I will say they cost money and you're right, you don't have to buy the furniture, but unfortunately, that's one of the first things that gets cut when we're trying to save some dollars. So, we'll get back to the design of it. But one thing to consider if your project is getting too high of cost, is a lot of times built-ins can be done later. They don't usually get done, so keep that in mind.
[Laughter]
Keep in mind what you're cutting because it's hard to go back in and spend the money later. I think it gets cut mostly because it's an easy thing to be like, "Oh yeah, we'll do it later,” and you can. The other thing is to make it flexible over time.
So, I have a lot of clients that we've done like toy store … we'll label it “toy storage,” but it's only going to be toy storage for like three years, and then it's going to need to function as something else. So, kind of look ahead a little bit and see what it's going to be used for long term.
Marilyn Moedinger (07:37):
Absolutely. And along the flexibility lines, one project that we did that was so fun, it was this penthouse apartment was less than 800 square feet. The owner wanted two bed, two bath and big kitchen and living and dining and all this.
They wanted a bedroom that was separate, like a guest bedroom, they wanted a dining room, they wanted a separate office.They wanted to hide all the HVAC, they wanted dining for 12 and where to keep all the chairs when they weren't setting up a dining table for 12.And they wanted to be able to open the entire room and make it part of the main living space because they threw all these parties.
And by the way, we're always saying on here, don't worry about coming up with solutions, just bring us your wish list.
Sheri Scott (08:23):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a list.
Marilyn Moedinger (08:25):
We had so much fun.So, what we ended up doing was building this wall that had a Murphy bed so that flips down, and behind the Murphy bed, there were these doors that you could open and there was a storage compartment, and that's where we kept the chairs for the dining. We kept Shoji screens, like folding screens so that you could get those out and cordon off the space so that when it was guest room, you could block the space. You could get out the chairs or whatever.
It had a flip down compartment, and that's where the laptop lived and then it had another flip down compartment, and that's where the printer was, so all of it was out of sight. And it was so fun to think of all that stuff, and obviously, all custom and all whatever. And it was also not cheap.Like to get all those things working together was not cheap.
But what it meant for the owner was that they could live in 800 square feet or 750 or whatever it is, and have all of these functions achievable. And everyone who comes in says, “Oh my gosh, this is so cool.” And he shows all the flipping and flopping and all this stuff.
Sheri Scott (09:30):
Yeah, that's fun.
Marilyn Moedinger (09:31):
So, I think when you're talking about something that's expensive and complicated to build, which built-ins can be if they have all those moving parts and whatever, it's what are you getting in exchange? So, they were getting a space that acted twice as big as it is because it had all these functions to it.
Sheri Scott (09:51):
That's a great story, I love that. One of my favorite built-ins to do is a hallway lined with closets on one side.I mean, you just always have all the blankets, and like you said, the games and things like that, just storage and designing it intentionally and using a hallway space so that it's not totally lost to just breezing through. You can line one side of that with some storage, and it usually looks pretty like paneling and woodwork.
Marilyn Moedinger (10:30):
And the cool thing about built-ins is that since they're custom, you can make them do what you want. So, we've done back to our idea of storage hidden in plain sight.We've done basement storage in a finished basement where they were these really deep closets, and they were deep enough to hold those big Rubbermaid tubs.
So, the idea was you would open the closet and there were just tubs stacked to the ceiling, each on their own shelf. So if you want the bottom tub, you don't have to take all the other ones off.And that's where the kids’ (they have three kids) seasonal clothes are. There was no attic and no basement in this house. We had to fill it with living space, bedrooms and hang out and whatever.
So, the great thing about built-ins is you can say, well, a closet doesn't have to be 24 inches deep, let's make it 32, so that we can fit these specialized tubs that they wanted to fit in there. We designed that whole thing around these tubs that she had been like, “These are my tubs and we're using these.”I was like, “Absolutely.” And we designed around it.
And when you're in custom cabinetry land, it doesn't matter if it's 24 inches deep or 27 inches deep.I mean, they're just like whatever, okay, we just set our saws at a different width, it doesn't matter. And I think that's the advantage of going full custom built-ins like that. So, you can do whatever you want.
Sheri Scott (11:48):
That is one of the funnest parts of the project a lot of times.And a lot of times, it's one of those just small details that people … it's why you do a custom home. Like you've got this one thing that you want, several clients still ask for hidden doors, like that is-
Marilyn Moedinger (12:08):
Jib doors.
Sheri Scott (12:09):
Everyone loves a hidden door.And I love coming up with different ways to do it because now you can get, I don't know what they're called — the hinges that allow the door to be hidden and still operate appropriately.
And so, you can just design any different way. Everyone's seen the paneled door that opens and it looks like it's just in a paneled wall, which is cool, but there's so many other ways to do it now. And it doesn't have to be a regular door-sized door, like do something huge and oversized, and so many different fun things to do.
Marilyn Moedinger (12:51):
Well, speaking of fun things, one of my favorite types of built-in to do is kid-related. So, anything related to forts or secret compartments or whatever is so fun. So, especially when an owner says, "Hey, we are doing this dedicated kid space maybe in the basement or whatever."I'm like, "Oh, well, let's put a fort underneath the stairs with a hidden door."
And maybe it has a little hole in it so you can look out at people, and you can look out to the other direction and see who's coming. And we've done so much sort of family fun stuff like that, that okay so when the kids are older and they don't want to hang out in the fort, it becomes a storage space, it doesn't hurt anything.
So, kid built-ins are super fun, pet built-ins are fun. So, we'll do dog food storage, dog bowl, whatever, like some of that stuff, hidden cat litter areas so that the cat litter boxes isn’t … and I think the theme here is you don't want to get too “bells and whistles” about it, but you also don't want to move into your gorgeous new home and the first thing you do is say, “Well, where do I put the cat pan?”
And it's out in the middle of everything. So, building around the reality of how you live and what you're up to just makes sense, and built-ins obviously help you do that.
Sheri Scott (14:20):
Something I haven't had the opportunity to do, which I'm surprised — I see reels, I save reels just like all my clients do, of the like child gate or puppy gates that slide fully into the wall, especially for … like you'll outgrow needing gates to keep kids off the stairs. But if you're an animal person, you're probably going to have a dog that you want to gate off or keep out or keep in whichever way you do it, and that's a great built-in way to do it.It looks very sophisticated.
Marilyn Moedinger (15:00):
Absolutely. And I think the other thing here too, is that the types of built-ins we're describing are different kinds. So, we've talked about everything from the crazy one with the Murphy bed and the flipping and the flopping, those are the most intense and most expensive down to including just put a little door underneath the stair and put some drywall on there and paint the walls.
So, that's not maybe technically a built-in per se, but there's a wide range.Like it doesn't all have to be custom cabinetry from the cabinet guy, it can also be even in our most high-end projects, we still have a whole list of “built-ins” that are done on site. So, that would be MDF shelving or closet.We haven't even talked about closet built-ins, oh, my goodness (chuckles). All the cool things you can do in a closet.
But there are some things that you can site build, and if you have good carpenters, if your general contractor has good people, good finish carpenters, they can do a lot of it on site and finish it on site and it'll look really nice, and it's cheaper generally than having custom cabinetry built.
But all that said, and we should talk about cabinetry … I mean, we've talked about in the past, we should probably do another (we could do a million episodes on cabinetry) — but about what drives the cost of cabinetry, the different ways you can do it and that kind of stuff.
But built-ins basically can be anything from as simple as like a little cubby, something very simple that while you're under construction, you're like, oh, there's this weird little shape that's left over, let's actually finish it with drywall and that becomes a little cubby. And it doesn't have to be the full bells and whistles, you know, craziness.
Sheri Scott (16:47):
And it can still be simple, but you have to plan ahead. Like if you want that pocket door gate type thing, you have to plan ahead for that because you need to build it into the wall system. So, think through that during design.
I would say the one that we do on almost every single project is some kind of fireplace built in. So, always we're faced with the challenge of fireplace and TV, and we don't have so much TV equipment.We used to have to find a place for the receiver and all the-
Marilyn Moedinger (17:23):
The VCR or the DVD player.
Sheri Scott (17:24):
Or the DVD player, depending on your generation or VHS.And we don't have that much anymore, but it's always a design in our set of drawings because we want to plan for that. And like you said, it can be something as simple as a slab top and simple open shelves. But we want to plan for it. We want to plan on what is that wall design, we don't want to move into a vanilla box where you just have a fireplace, and then you got to figure out the TV and-
Marilyn Moedinger (18:04):
Yes, and all the stuff. Well, I think this is a really big difference between working with a spec builder or production builder and working with a custom project. Because when we do custom projects, no matter how much planning we do ahead of time, there are also little fun things that come up along the way, especially in renovation.
So, we'll be walking through during framing, we'll say, “Oh, wow, okay we didn't need to use that for that cubby, that little space for something, let's put a door on it.” And I think the funniest one we did was there was this long, skinny space was left over, we put a door on it and that's where they would keep their skis.
Because it's New England, like everybody knows. So, every single space — also safes, that's another one that we get a lot of questions about. And those don't appear on drawings, by the way, we won't draw them on the drawings because then if everyone knows where the safe is, then there you go.So, I think also it's about planning ahead and that's probably 90 to 95 percent of it.
And then that last five or 10 percent is where you discover something or, oh, look how this bump out is working or the framing was slightly different than we planned and that allows for this little cubby or this little trap door, like something interesting.
And when you're working in a custom project and a custom process, you can say, “Can we do this?”And the builder says, “Yeah, the change order will be 700 bucks or something.” And you're like, “Yep, let's do it.” And then you do it.
And that's in a spec home or production build, you're just not going to have those kinds of opportunities. And that's fine, you don't have to, but that's kind of the fun of a custom process is you can kind of discover it as you go. So, that's why we like it.I know, like you and I, that's why we like it because of all those fun things we get to do.
Sheri Scott (19:48):
And it's an opportunity to do something a little bit different. So, we haven't talked about materials or colors, there's just so much creativity and some of those small moments where mostly in the beginning of design, we're focused on creating the mass and especially in new construction, we're creating everything from scratch. And if we're not doing a full custom, full-service project, a lot of times, we don't get to those smaller details, and that is a lot of times where the magic happens in those built-ins.
Marilyn Moedinger (20:30):
Yep, absolutely and that's where things become really personal to you or to your client. I love the story, was like, "Give me that shredder right there."The other one we hear a lot is water bottle filling.
Sheri Scott (20:42):
Oh, I just saved a reel where when you said that about the it fits in the width of the wall, there was a reel where a guy just took out his drywall and put a bottle filler in there. And I think I have my husband convinced to ditch our dining room and do a pantry there, and it was all because I sent him that reel.
Marilyn Moedinger (21:06):
I love it.
Sheri Scott (21:07):
There are all ways to make it work.
[Laughter]
Marilyn Moedinger (21:09):
Yeah, we're the same. We're saving reels all the time.
Sheri Scott (21:13):
I know, I know.
Marilyn Moedinger (21:15):
But stuff like that, like if you just kind of go through your day to day and think about all the little things that you're doing and the way built-ins can support everything along the way. As long as you're not getting so hyper specific, there'll be things that other people want to, and there'll be things that every time your house will be the reel.
When everyone walks in, when people, your friends come over and they're like, “Oh, my gosh, that's so cool or that's so clever.” Just take some thinking.
And one of my favorite things that clients say to me is, "Well, wait, can I do that?" And I'm like, "Yeah, yeah, do anything. You can do whatever you want."Obviously, budget implications and whatever, and of course, we talk through all that. But yeah, that's the point of doing something custom.
Is that you can do those really cool things and you can at every moment you're interacting with your house, there's something that's supporting you in what you're doing, whether it's the mail or your bathroom vanity, or the fireplace or whatever.
Sheri Scott (22:17):
And be thoughtful about it, and be open to different ways to solve a problem, like with the bottle filler, it's like, oh, well, I ride bikes and I run, and we've got three kids running around and they fill up their water bottle before they go to school and like well, let's put a bottle filler in, not worry about-
Marilyn Moedinger (22:40):
And storage for water bottles, so then that is not at the main kitchen sink where parents are trying to get the last dishes in the sink in the morning, kids are trying to fill — everyone's trying to go to the one faucet, we don't have to do that. We can solve that.
Sheri Scott (22:55):
We can solve that (laughs).
Marilyn Moedinger (22:57):
That’s a great place to end (laughs).
Sheri Scott (22:58):
Yes, it is. We can solve it. With built-ins, always.
Marilyn Moedinger (23:02):
We can solve it.
Sheri Scott (23:04):
Okay, well, thanks for joining us today on Home: The Second Story for a quick snack. Questions for us or topics you'd like us to cover or interested in being a guest, reach out at admin@htsspodcast.com, and follow us on Instagram. See you next time.
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