Our neighbor contacted us about custom-building a laundry room shelf that could fit 4 laundry baskets. Stephen worked up some plans, using the dimensions they needed, and got to it!

He bought 3/4” cabinet-grade plywood for the shelves, 2x2s for cleats, and 2x6s for the top. The plywood came as a 4’ x 8’ sheet, so we stripped it down into smaller pieces for the sides and the shelves.

He built the base and the sides of the shelf. He attached everything with wood glue and pocket hole screws.

He built 2 shelves, forming 4 compartments that could each hold a normal-sized laundry basket. He used pocket holes to connect the shelves to the sides.

He installed cleats under the shelves and under the top with the 2×2 pieces of wood. These provided extra support.

He made the top with 2x6s going across, and a 2×4 to go across the front, mainly to cover the cleats.

After sanding the wooden top, I got to staining. They wanted the top stained gray, and the bottom painted white.

It took about 6 coats of stain to get a darker gray color, and it took 3 coats of white chalk paint to look solid. I polyurethaned the top, and it was complete!

Here it is in their laundry room!