DIY Shelf + Shelf Holders

Continuing along with my sister’s mud area, the next thing I’ll talk about is the top shelf that we built. She wanted a shelf that could hold baskets, so it would be high, but not too high that it was unreachable.

We went to Home Depot to look for wooden shelf holders, and we found one style. I noticed two things about them. 1) In my opinion, they didn’t look good. They had this wavy pattern in the wood that looked a bit cheap. We were going for a more rustic look, so this just didn’t seem to go. 2) They were $12 each! So, $24 for two shelf holders that were just eh.

I decided to look online- I figured it couldn’t be too difficult to build some wooden shelf holders. I found an easy style, sent the picture to Stephen, and he got to work.

These were made completely from his scrap wood pile! He used 2x4s and formed an L. He used wood screws to connect them. In this case, one piece of wood was 6 inches long, and the other was 5 inches long.

He cut a 1×2 to support the middle of the L. He beveled the ends so that the angles would match up with the two sides, and he used wood glue and pocket screws to secure the 2×2. He also beveled the ends of the 2x4s, but this is more for decorative purposes.

Next up- painting the shelf holders white!

We then attached one holder to one side of the mud area. Stephen screwed it into the wall in two places.

We held up the other holder, and used a level to make sure they were at the same height. We then screwed it into the wall.

My sister had a spare piece of 1×8 laminate wood from an old piece of furniture. It took a bunch of coats of paint to cover it since it wasn’t real wood, but hey, it was free! We cut the shelf to 40″ wide, set it on top of the shelf holders, and screwed it in, down into the holders. We filled in the nail holes on the holders with caulk, and did another coat of fresh painting.

And there you have it! Our shelf + two shelf holders that were made from things we had lying around! If you didn’t have this wood already, you could use a 2+ foot 2×4, a 1+ foot 2×2, and a 1×8 (whatever length you need for your shelf!).