The Builder Special: Why Your Brand-New Closet Is Mostly Empty Air
One wire shelf and a rod, seven feet up, with about 43 cubic feet of nothing underneath. What the builder left out of your new-build closet, and what fits in the same eight feet.
COTTAGE COUNTRY STORAGE · GRAVENHURST, ON
Custom Cabinets and Cottage Storage in Gravenhurst
Gravenhurst is the first Muskoka town you hit coming up Highway 11, and it is about 55 minutes from our workshop at 73 Saunders Rd in Barrie. That makes it the easiest cottage-country drive we do. The town splits into two different storage problems: century houses in the old grid near the Opera House, and waterfront places on Lake Muskoka, Gull Lake and Sparrow Lake.
Serving Gravenhurst
OUR WORK
Storage Built for Gravenhurst
Closets, mudrooms and boathouse storage are the parts of a cottage nobody planned. The house got a great room and a dock, and the gear ended up in piles by the side door. We build to your measurements, install with our own employees rather than subcontractors, and back the whole system with our Homeowners Lifetime Warranty.
THE REAL JOB
What Storage Has to Do in Gravenhurst
Gravenhurst is the first Muskoka town you hit coming up Highway 11, and it is about 55 minutes from our workshop at 73 Saunders Rd in Barrie. That makes it the easiest cottage-country drive we do. The town splits into two different storage problems: century houses in the old grid near the Opera House, and waterfront places on Lake Muskoka, Gull Lake and Sparrow Lake.
In-town houses have no closets worth the name
The older streets off Muskoka Road went up before fitted storage existed, so the bedrooms tend to have one shallow cupboard with a single rod and a shelf above it. Some are under 20 inches deep, which will not take a winter coat on a hanger without crushing it. We usually rebuild inside the existing opening rather than stealing floor area from a small bedroom.
Waterfront places store two boats' worth of gear
Lake Muskoka and Gull Lake mean a boat, and a boat means life jackets in every size, tow ropes, a wetsuit or two and a tube that never quite deflates. None of it belongs in a bedroom closet and most of it ends up on the floor of the garage. We run it along one garage or boathouse wall with a drip tray under the wet zone.
The Wharf-side condos have the opposite problem
The newer builds down by Muskoka Wharf are tight rather than sprawling, and they usually have good bones but very little of anything built in. There the win is vertical: taller cabinets, a wall bed in the second bedroom so it works as a guest room and an office, and drawers instead of shelves so nothing gets lost at the back.
WHY DREAM SPACES
Why Gravenhurst Homeowners Choose Dream Spaces
Most storage sold into Gravenhurst is a stock closet kit sized for a subdivision bedroom, and the older houses in this town are anything but standard. Shallow openings, walls that are not square, and ceilings that change height halfway across the room. We measure the opening you have rather than the one a catalogue assumes. DRIVE LINE: Our designer meets you at the house with the finish samples, so you see them in the light of the room they are going into. Gravenhurst is the closest Muskoka town to us, about 55 minutes up Highway 11. MATERIAL HEADING: Materials That Handle a Boathouse MATERIAL BODY: A heated bedroom closet and an unheated boathouse are not the same build. We say which one you are getting before we quote, and we spec the moisture-tolerant box where it has to swing through 40 degrees of humidity.
A Designer Comes to You
Our designer meets you at the house with the finish samples, so you see them in the light of the room they are going into. Gravenhurst is the closest Muskoka town to us, about 55 minutes up Highway 11. MATERIAL HEADING: Materials That Handle a Boathouse MATERIAL BODY: A heated bedroom closet and an unheated boathouse are not the same build. We say which one you are getting before we quote, and we spec the moisture-tolerant box where it has to swing through 40 degrees of humidity.
Built for Two Seasons
Half your gear is dormant six months of the year. We plan the dormant half onto deep shelves and into lidded bins, and keep the in-season half at eye level where you can reach it without moving anything else first.
Materials That Handle a Boathouse
A heated bedroom closet and an unheated boathouse are not the same build. We say which one you are getting before we quote, and we spec the moisture-tolerant box where it has to swing through 40 degrees of humidity.
Homeowners Lifetime Warranty
For as long as you own the house. That matters more on a place you plan to hand to your kids than on one you expect to sell in five years.
SERVICES
What We Build in Gravenhurst
Below is the full range. In Gravenhurst it is mostly bedroom closets in the older in-town houses and garage or boathouse walls on the water. We count what has to fit before drawing any of it.
HOW IT WORKS
Our Process
One team handles the job from the first measure to the last screw. Up here that matters, because we are not coordinating a subcontractor you have never met into a house you are not living in. Your designer brings the samples to you, and we deliver the flat-packed cabinetry ourselves rather than leaving you to haul it up Highway 11.
01
Consultation
We come to the house, or do it over video if you are in the city and the cottage is not. We walk the rooms, open the closets that are not working, and count what has to go back into them.
02
Custom Design
You get a rendering of the actual room at its actual dimensions. If a boathouse or a bunkie is in scope, we flag the material change here in writing, before you approve anything.
03
Professional Installation
Our own employees install it. We protect the floors, and most installs finish inside a day, so a Friday arrival does not become a weekend of noise.
04
Enjoy Your New Space
We walk it with you and load the first season in together, so you can see whether the shelf heights are right while we are still standing there.
More on Closets
Kids’ Closets That Still Work in Five Years
The closet you build for a four-year-old is wrong by nine and faintly humiliating by fourteen. Eight decisions that let a kids’ closet change with the child.
How to Read a Custom Closet Quote in Ontario
Two quotes for the same closet can land thousands apart. What drives the number, and the three construction questions that make any two quotes comparable.
COMMON QUESTIONS
Gravenhurst Storage, Answered
How far is Gravenhurst from your workshop?
About 55 minutes up Highway 11 from 73 Saunders Rd in Barrie, which makes it the closest Muskoka town to us. Severn Bridge, Sparrow Lake and the Kilworthy side are all in the same run.
Our closet opening is tiny. Is it worth rebuilding?
Usually yes, and usually without moving a wall. A lot of the older Gravenhurst bedrooms have a shallow reach-in that wastes its own height, because there is one rod at chest level and dead air above and below. Double-hanging and a drawer bank inside the same opening often close to doubles what it holds.
Can you build storage in a boathouse?
We can, with a different material spec than we would use in the house. A boathouse is unheated and swings through a lot of humidity, so ordinary melamine swells at the edges and stops closing after a few seasons. Out there we use a moisture-tolerant box and put the cost difference in the quote.
What does a project in Gravenhurst cost?
Reach-in closets run $2,500 to $6,000 and a walk-in $4,000 to $10,000. A large walk-in or dressing room is $10,000 to $20,000, and painted full-custom work runs $20,000 to $40,000 and up. We quote from a measured design rather than a bracket.
Start Your Gravenhurst Storage Project
Closets, garages and boathouse storage in Gravenhurst all start from the same two questions: what has to fit, and where is it living now. Call 705-315-9169 or book a consultation. Coming up Highway 11 we pass through Orillia, where we build custom cabinets and kitchens, and we also build across cottage country in Muskoka. The full list of towns is on our Ontario service areas page.
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