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 · HUNTSVILLE, ON
Custom Cabinets and Storage for Huntsville and the Lakes
Huntsville is the biggest town in Muskoka and the one place up here that stays busy in both seasons. Fairy, Peninsula, Vernon and Mary Lakes in July, Hidden Valley and the Arrowhead skating trail in February. That means two full sets of gear in one building, all year, and most houses were never given anywhere to put either. We build cabinets to the room, in our own Barrie workshop.
Serving Huntsville
OUR WORK
Storage Built for Huntsville
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 Huntsville
Huntsville is the biggest town in Muskoka and the one place up here that stays busy in both seasons. Fairy, Peninsula, Vernon and Mary Lakes in July, Hidden Valley and the Arrowhead skating trail in February. That means two full sets of gear in one building, all year, and most houses were never given anywhere to put either. We build cabinets to the room, in our own Barrie workshop.
The only town where both seasons are the busy one
On most of the lakes the winter half of the gear can go to the back of a cupboard until May. Huntsville does not get that luxury, because the skating trail and the hill keep the place occupied through the winter. So the storage has to give you fast access to both halves rather than parking one. Usually that means two reachable zones instead of one reachable and one archived.
Four lakes, four different boat-gear problems
Fairy and Peninsula are connected and get bigger boats, Mary and Vernon see more canoes and paddleboards. It changes what has to hang. Life jackets need air rather than a sealed bin, paddles want vertical slots, and a wetsuit needs somewhere to drip that is not the floor of a closet. We count what you own at the measure and size the run to that.
Algonquin gear is bulkier than cottage gear
Huntsville is the west gate staging point, so a lot of houses here store camping and portage kit as well as cottage kit. Packs, barrels and a canoe on the wall need more depth than a coat. A 24-inch closet takes a parka, but a portage pack wants closer to 30 inches and a clear floor under it. Tell us if that is in scope, because it changes the cabinet depth before anything is cut.
WHY DREAM SPACES
Why Huntsville Homeowners Choose Dream Spaces
Most storage sold into Huntsville is a stock closet kit sized for a subdivision bedroom. It has no idea what a portage pack is. We design around the problem this town actually has, which is two full seasons of gear in one building and no quiet half of the year to park either of them. DRIVE LINE: Our designer meets you at the house with the finish samples, so you see them in Huntsville light rather than under a showroom bulb. It is about an hour and a half up Highway 11 from the shop. 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 Huntsville light rather than under a showroom bulb. It is about an hour and a half up Highway 11 from the shop. 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 Huntsville
Below is the full range. In Huntsville most of it is the mudroom, the garage wall and a primary closet that has to hold two seasons at once. 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
Huntsville Storage, Answered
Do you come out to Huntsville?
We do. Huntsville is about an hour and a half from the workshop at 73 Saunders Rd in Barrie, straight up Highway 11. Dwight, Baysville, Port Sydney and Novar are all in the same run.
We use the place all winter. Does that change the design?
It changes it more than people expect. A summer-only cottage can park the winter half of its gear somewhere awkward, because you are not reaching for it. A year-round Huntsville house cannot, so we plan two zones you can actually get at rather than one good one and one you have to unpack.
Can you store a canoe or a kayak inside?
Inside a garage or a boathouse, yes, on wall cradles we set to your hull. Not in a closet. Anything over about 14 feet wants a wall run rather than a cabinet, and we will tell you that at the measure instead of building you an expensive box it does not fit in.
What does a project in Huntsville 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. Cottage jobs usually land higher than a single closet because they tend to be a mudroom and a garage wall at the same time.
Start Your Huntsville Storage Project
Closets, mudrooms and garage walls in Huntsville 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 and we will drive up. We also build across cottage country in Muskoka, and the full list of towns is on our Ontario service areas page.
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