Build a DIY Wood Screen Utility Box Cover

Ready to hide those eyesore utility boxes and cords on the side of your house? This DIY utility box cover is easily removable for maintenance, super easy to build, and the DIY wood screen looks great!

You’ll also want to check out 13 Ways to Hide Outdoor Eyesores in Your Yard (from utility boxes to garden hoses and more) and 25 Ways to Add Curb Appeal. For indoors, try one of these 95 Ways to Hide or Decorate Around The Television and Electronics Cords.

Easy DIY Wood Screen Utility Box Cover

Hello Remodelaholics!  I am Tasha and I blog over at Designer Trapped in a Lawyer’s Body.  You may remember my previous posts about how to transform an outdated, cultured marble vanity with concrete and my post about how we built our own screen door to get just the look we wanted.  Well, I am back again this month to teach you how to build a DIY screen to hide your ugly utility boxes.

My blog focuses on thrifty DIY projects, easy crafts and happy household tips.  And sometimes I tackle a DIY project because I have no other choice.  The project I am sharing with you today is one of those projects.  You see, our home had these unsightly utility boxes and wires at our back door entry, which is the entry that we use the most!  Unfortunately, there is no good solution to hide them that we could find, so we came up with our own and we just love how it turned out.

Our quest to hide the utility boxes was the first of many steps we took to improve the back entry to our house. Frankly, our back door entry could not have been less inviting when we started.  Don’t believe me?  Just take a look for yourself.  This is what we started with.

Fortunately, it’s not hard to find inspiration for the look we want to achieve. We love the ideas shared in Top 10 Ideas for a Welcoming Porch and Home Sweet Home on a Budget: Porches Patios and Entryways.  So, we decided to get to work and our DIY wood screen to hide our utility boxes was first on our list.

Just look how it turned out — this DIY utility box cover is such a nice little update for just a few bucks and a bit of our time.

Looking for a DIY utility box cover that’s NOT on the side of your house? Try this easy DIY box cover that Heather made to hide her AC unit – it’s a simple and quick project that looks amazing!

How to Build a DIY Utility Box Cover to Cables and Eyesores on the Side of the House

This DIY wood screen utility box cover a project of intermediate difficulty and requires that you have some basic knowledge of woodworking terms and cuts.  But, if you have some basic DIY projects under your belt already, I am confident you can tackle this one.

Before starting this project, be certain you have a clear understanding of your local utility company’s requirements for clearance around and access to meters. The wood screen DIY utility box cover is removable, and we haven’t heard any complaints from our company (and never did in the 5+ years before we moved from this home). If you’re concerned about access, you could always hinge the front panel, as well, like we did in version 2 when we remodeled our deck.

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Materials We Used

• Plywood {amount varies by project size} or you could sub 6″ and 8″ deck boards
• 2 x 2s {amount varies by project size}
• Wood stain
• Weather proof polyurethane
• Exterior wood glue (optional)
• Painter’s tape
• Wood putty

Tools We Used

• Brad nailer
• Table saw
• Band saw
• Circular saw

Step 1: Plan Your DIY Utility Box Cover

First, take a look at the diagrams below, which will provide a good visual context for the steps outlined below.

The DIY utility box cover is a simple design to make it easy to modify for where you need to place it on the exterior of your home. The visible parts are the front slats and the 2 side panels.

On the inside of the utility box cover, the entire wood screen is supported by 2x2s at the corners with 4 corner braces. The screen attaches to the side of the house using a simple wood clead – just a piece of 2×2 cut at an angle to the cover can “hang” on the side of the house (but it doesn’t actually hang, it just rests on the cleats attached to the house).

Spend some time measuring out and planning your project. Sketch it out! Determine how tall and wide you want the screen to be and then figured out what cuts you will need to make to ensure that the slats are spaced well and look good.  Pre-planning will save you time in the end, I promise.

Step 2: Cut The Front Slats

Once you determine how tall and wide your screen will be, cut horizontal slats for the front of your screen out of plywood.  Bear in mind that you will want to make your front slats long enough to cover the edges of the side panels.  We also had stairs to deal with, so we had to take into account when making our cuts for the bottom of the screen. Those front slats along the stairs are staggered to match the depth of the steps.

Step 3: Cut the 2×2 Vertical Supports & Cleat

You will be using four 2 x 2s as vertical supports for the your screen, so next cut them to the appropriate length to match the total height of the screen at each corner.

To create the wood cleats, cut 1 pieces of 2×2 to 12-16″ in length, then cut a 45-degree cut in the center of each board. (See photos below in Step 11.)

Step 4: Cut the Side Panels

Finally, cut your side panels from plywood to the appropriate size. If your DIY utility box cover isn’t along a staircase, the sides will probably be the same size – if not, cut them to the correct size.

Step 5: Stain and Seal the Wood Screen Pieces

Once all of your wood is cut, stain it and then add a weather proof polyurethane.  I’m not gonna lie, this step is time consuming.  Just listen to some good music or an audiobook for this step. Allow time for everything to dry.

Step 6: Attach the Front Slats to the Vertical Supports

Once your poly top coat has dried, you are ready to assemble.  You can do this with just the brad nailer, or you can make sure it’s extra secure by adding exterior wood glue to each joint if you’d like.

Begin by attaching the front slats to two vertical 2 x 2s with a brad nailer. Be sure to leave some overhang so that your front slats will cover the edges of your side panels.  We used a scrap piece of wood the same thickness as our side panels to ensure our spacing was correct as we attached the front slats.

Step 7: Attach the Side Panels

Next, attach the side panels with your brad nailer. Note that we taped the edges of our wood with painter’s tape prior to nailing them.  You’ll see why in step 12 🙂

Step 8: Attach Additional Vertical Supports

Next, attach a 2 x 2 to the back, vertical edge of each side panel. This probably isn’t strictly necessary, but this helps keep the plywood from warping and also gives you a better surface to attach the cleat to later.

Step 9: Cut and Attach Corner Braces

Finally, if your screen is as wide or wider than ours, you may need to cut four corner braces to add strength and stability to your screen.  We cut ours out of the same plywood using our band saw, but you could also use a jig saw or even a circular saw.  Each corner brace is just a triangle with the corner cut out to fit the 2×2.

We attached two corner braces to the top corners of the screen, and two to the bottom corners {see the diagram at the beginning of the instructions}.

Step 10: Accommodate the Stairs (If Needed)

Because the deck stairs interfered with our screen, we had to make our 2 x 2s long enough to anchor into the wood stairs.  So, we had to cut out a square the same size as our 2 x 2s so that the supports of the screen could be placed through them to make it sturdy.  We did this by first tracing the 2 x 2 shape on the top and bottom stair.  

We then drilled a small hole with a drill bit and then a larger hole with a paddle bit.  We then squared it off by using a hand chisel.  If you are lucky enough to have a flat surface at the bottom of your screen, you should not have to worry about this step.

Step 11: Attach Wood Cleats to Cover and House

This 2×2 wood cleat enables you to easily remove it by lifting it off if you ever need to access the utility boxes, but it will prevent the screen from shifting during strong winds or storms.

Attach one side of the cleat to the utility box cover, and the other side the house, as shown.

**We have not heard any complaints from our electric company about the ability to read our meter, so they must either remove the screen themselves or peek through the slats! Many cities have installed remote meter reading capability in recent years, too.  But again, if we need to remove it, it’s super easy to lift it out of the way!  If you are concerned about this, you could always hinge the front, slatted panel to give you even easier access.**

Step 12: Fill the Nail Holes

Finally, mix a bit of your wood stain with wood putty and fill in the holes left by the brad nails.  Then peel the tape off and you have perfectly matched and patched holes without making a mess!  See how that painter’s tape trick comes in handy?

Final Results: DIY Utility Box Cover

We added some address numbers to ours to dress it up a bit.  We absolutely love the finished result.  SUCH an improvement from where we started.  What do you think?

I would love for you to head over to my blog, Designer Trapped in a Lawyer’s Body, to check out how we made that DIY “home” state wood plaque hanging above the wood screen.  While you are there, be sure to explore some of our other thrifty renovation projects, like how we painted our kitchen cabinets without sanding or priming or how we created a STUNNING laundry room for only $71 out of pocket.  Our laundry room makeover includes painted vinyl floors {yep, you can PAINT vinyl floors!}.  I hope to see you over in my corner of blog land soon!

If you want to save this project to refer back to later, I would love for you to pin it and share it on Facebook, Instagram, or wherever you hang out!

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First published: 16 July 2015 // Last updated: 17 July 2024