After painting the downstairs of our house, the first project we wanted to tackle was getting rid of these ugly wire shelves in our pantry. It seems like a frivalous first project, but we knew how much time we would spend using the pantry and really wanted it to be more functional (also we wanted it to look better lol). I had a deep hate for the wire shelves from the moment I laid eyes on them. Aside from being hideous, the wire shelves were difficult to clean and things didn’t sit evenly on them.
We tossed the idea around of ripping them out and just putting new shelves up all together, but honestly after 2 weeks of patching and painting walls we were not thrilled about having to patch holes up and down the walls of this small space.
We decided on these faux floating farmhouse shelves that I found on Pinterest. They are wooden shelves that lay over the existing wire ones.
Materials Used :
- Sanded Plywood – .5 inch thick – we had these cut to the width of the existing wire shelves and 3 inches shorter than the length of the wire shelves.
- Oak 2.75 inch X .75 inch – Home Depot sold these in random lengths so we bought 2 long ones and cut 2 from each to match the length of the sanded plywood.
- Minwax Stain – Dark Walnut
- Minwax Polycrylic Clear Gloss
- Nail Gun
- Wood Glue
- Finishing Nails
What to do :
- First, you will want to measure your existing wire shelves. Ours had large brackets on either side so to compensate for that space, we cut our wooden shelves to be exactly the length and width of the existing shelves which was several inches shorter than the length we had from wall to wall. This allowed us to slip the wood in easily without getting stuck by the brackets
- You will want to glue and nail the “ledge” to the shelf. The oak is the edge or lip that comes down over the front of the shelves. The best way to describe this is that you want them to make the shape of a capital L
- We did a line of glue down the seem as well of where the oak and plywood meet
- Let the glue set
- Stain shelves to your desired color
- Seal them with a poly-crylic
- We did 3 coats of poly-crylic and lightly sanded in between each coat for an even finish
- Once they poly-crylic is dry you just slip them over your existing shelves
andddd viola!
Let me know if you give this DIY a try!
Love always,
