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.
CUSTOM CABINETS & COTTAGE STORAGE · MUSKOKA, ON
Muskoka Custom Cabinets, Closets and Cottage Storage
We are a cabinet shop before we are a closet company. Everything is cut and assembled at 73 Saunders Rd in Barrie, then we drive it up ourselves, which is about 45 minutes to Gravenhurst. A Muskoka house stores two of everything, skis and water skis, parkas and life jackets, and half of it sits in the way for six months at a time. We build the cabinetry to the room rather than to a catalogue size.
Serving Muskoka
OUR WORK
Storage Built for Cottage Country
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 Cottage Country
The storage problem in Muskoka is not a shortage of square footage. It is that the same house runs as a summer place and a winter place, and then turns into a guest house on a long weekend, and the gear for each has nowhere to go out of season.
Closing up for the winter
Cushions, linens and anything soft has to go somewhere dry and shut before you lock the door in October. Open shelving does not cut it, because mice do not care how tidy the shelf is. We build closed cabinets and real doors for the things you leave behind, and we size them off what you actually put away, counted at the measure, rather than off a guess.
Two wardrobes, one closet
Parkas and rain shells both need hanging space, and a rod holds about 10 to 12 garments per linear foot however you feel about it. Two wardrobes means double the linear feet, or a plan for parking one set. Usually the plan is a second rod up high for the off season, reached with a step, and the in-season rod at 24 inches deep where a parka hangs without pressing against the door.
Water gear and ski gear
Wet things need hooks and a drip tray rather than shelves. Skis and paddles want vertical slots. Life jackets want air. We run all of it along a garage or mudroom wall with the wet zone nearest the door, so the sand and the lake water stop before the carpet starts.
Boathouses and bunkies
These are unheated and they swing through a lot of humidity, so ordinary melamine swells at the edges and stops closing properly after a few seasons. Out there we use a moisture-tolerant box, and we put the difference in the quote instead of building the bedroom spec and hoping.
The guest room that sleeps six
The room over the boathouse is full on the August long weekend and empty in February. A wall bed built into the closet gives you both, and the room goes back to being a room for the rest of the year. We build the bed and the storage as one unit so the reveals line up.
Where Else We Build in Cottage Country
Muskoka is where most of our cottage work happens, and the same crew covers the lakes and towns around it. Each of these has its own page, because the job is not identical from one to the next: boat access changes the delivery, an unheated cottage changes the materials, and a chalet on the escarpment is a different brief again.
- Custom storage in Gravenhurst55 min · Lake Muskoka, Gull Lake
- Custom storage in Bracebridge1 hr 5 min · year-round homes
- Custom storage in Huntsville1 hr 30 min · the Fairy Lake chain
- Custom storage in Parry Sound1 hr 21 min · boat-access cottages
- Custom storage on Georgian Bay56 min · Honey Harbour, Port Severn
- Custom storage in Haliburton Highlands1 hr 52 min · unheated seasonal builds
- Custom storage in the Kawartha Lakes1 hr 31 min · winterised cottages
- Built-in wall units in Collingwood50 min · ski chalets
The full list of towns is on our Ontario service areas page.
WHY DREAM SPACES
Why Muskoka Homeowners Choose Dream Spaces
Most of the storage sold into Muskoka is a stock closet kit sized for a subdivision bedroom. It has no idea what a wetsuit is. We design around the two-season problem instead, because that is the one every house up here has and no catalogue solves it. Because it is all custom cabinetry rather than a kit, the awkward wall is a measurement rather than a problem.
A Designer Comes to the Cottage
Our designer meets you at the house with the finish samples, so you see them in Muskoka light off the water rather than under a showroom bulb. Gravenhurst is about 45 minutes from the shop and Huntsville about an hour and a quarter.
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 bunkie 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 for Muskoka Homes
Below is the whole range. It is all built as cabinetry, whether it ends up in a bedroom, a mudroom or a boathouse, and in Muskoka four of them do most of the work: the mudroom, the garage wall, the primary closet, and a wall bed in the guest room. 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
Muskoka Storage, Answered
Are you a closet company or a cabinet maker?
A cabinet maker. We build closets, mudrooms, pantries, wall units and boathouse storage out of the same shop at 73 Saunders Rd in Barrie, with our own employees cutting and installing it. That matters up here because the alternative is usually a franchise that orders a kit to standard sizes, and standard sizes are the one thing a Muskoka house does not have.
Do you actually come up to Muskoka?
We do, most weeks. Gravenhurst is about 45 minutes up Highway 11 from the workshop at 73 Saunders Rd in Barrie, Bracebridge about an hour, and Huntsville about an hour and a quarter. Port Carling, Windermere, Baysville, Bala and Rosseau all sit inside a normal working day for the install crew.
Can you build storage for an unheated boathouse or bunkie?
We can, with a different material spec than we would use inside the house. Ordinary melamine swells at the edges once it has been through enough humidity cycles, so out there we use a moisture-tolerant box. Expect it to cost more per linear foot, and expect us to put that in the quote rather than mention it afterwards.
We are only up on weekends. How does the design part work?
Most of it happens without you at the cottage. The first conversation can be a video call, the measure takes one visit, and you approve the rendering from home. The install is the only part that needs the house open, and that is usually a single day.
Can you design around the place being closed up all winter?
That is most of what we design for up here. The off-season half of your gear goes onto deep shelving and into closed drawers, and the in-season half stays at eye level. If you want the cushions and linens shut away from mice before you lock up, say so at the measure and we will build doors rather than open shelves.
What does a Muskoka project cost?
Reach-in closets run $2,500 to $6,000 and a walk-in $4,000 to $10,000, which is the build most people buy. 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 tend to land higher than a single closet because they are usually a mudroom and a garage wall and a primary suite at once. We quote from a measured design rather than a bracket, because the number moves a long way with linear feet and door style. There is a fuller breakdown on our custom closet cost page.
Is there a showroom we can visit up here?
No. 73 Saunders Rd in Barrie is a working workshop and it is not set up for drop-ins, and we have nothing in Muskoka. The samples come to you instead, which works out better anyway, because you see the finish in the light of the room it is going into.
Start Your Muskoka Storage Project
Closets, garages and boathouse storage all start from the same two questions: what has to fit, and where is it living now. We measure both before drawing anything. Call 705-315-9169 or book a consultation and we will come to you.
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