linen closet shelving by "The DIY Doghouse"

Time: 2 Weeks Cost: $40 Difficulty: Easy

The days of forgetting a towel and running naked through the upstairs to the hall closet are officially OVER! We DIYed closet shelves!

Thats me! I need a hair cut, so I’ve been told. I’m 5’9″. So this is a really large closet. Can you see the excitement on my face about getting some shelves in here? WOO.
When we redid our master bath, we removed a huge jacuzzi tub to make room for a custom shower and a linen closet, something our bathroom was lacking. After the bathroom was finished we never got around to actually putting shelves in the closet. For a while the vacuum and a step ladder lived in there.
We opted not to use wire shelving because I kinda have OCD. It drives me BONKERS when things don’t stand up straight because they’re an awkward width. For example, a shampoo bottle might lean to the right a little bit because it’s between the wires. I can’t live my life like that. I struggle with this shelving crisis in our laundry room. Honestly, it makes me dizzy. So we went with wood!

This DIY involved some power tools. So make sure you’re prepared if you’re opting for wood like we did!
Obviously we’re Ryobi fans. The batteries are awesome. They last a really long time and they charge quickly. On the left is the cordless circular saw, on the right is some kind of super drill. It’s awesome. Shortly after we bought our house we invested in the Ultimate Ryobi Combo Kit. It was a little pricy, but it was completely worth it. We’ve used every tool in the kit and the bag is perfect to keep tools securely stored. Now we have no excuse to lose any tools!
The Home Depot rocks. If you don’t have one near you, I apologize. Home Depot is usually our first stop for every DIY. Our “wood” shelving is actually MDF particle board. It’s really light weight and ridiculously easy to work with. The entire piece of particle board was $26 and they cut it to the size we specified right in the store so we were able to fit it in the car with ease.
We also picked up framing wood (actual wood) and made rails to hold the shelving in place.
we got home I was so excited to start hammering and cutting and screwing stuff in place that I completely forgot that I needed to paint the wood. This DIY was super cheap, but it took us 2 weeks to execute because we needed to wait 24 hours for the paint to dry and multiple coats to cover the wood… and I’m too lazy to DIY when I get home from work, so we wait for the weekends. However, it only took around 4 working hours to paint (minus dry time) and hang the rails.
I used Behr Ultra White to paint the MDF board and the wood rails. Our basement is gross… don’t look at this picture too hard. You will start to feel the cobwebs.

That’s my hot design assistant. Full disclosure: For this project though he was the boss and I was the assistant.



He’s measuring the bottom shelf, cutting the wood rail to size and screwing it into the wall. If you can’t find studs in the wall, make sure you’re using anchors. The shelves will be too heavy once you put stuff on them to stay in place unsupported. Also, it’s easier to start from the bottom and work your way up. Maybe it’s not, but that’s what we did.


After we got in the first rails we tested placing the shelf on top. It fit really well, but we added a second piece just to make sure that the shelf wouldn’t accidentally drop. We repeated the process 4 more times. We opted to do a half shelf on top because we wouldn’t really be able to reach back on a shelf that’s 6 ft.

Here’s the final result! No more naked sprints and flinging water all over the upstairs! WOO!
Materials I used for this project:

MDF board (Home Depot)
Power Tools (Home Depot)
Paint (Home Depot)