Installing a Wood Closet Shelf

By Mark J. Donovan

After seeing so many homes with wire closet shelving, I decided today to revolt. I needed to install a closet shelf in a basement closet. For years, I have procrastinated in doing this simple task, and for years I felt guilt. After installing my new closet shelf today, I am now actually feeling pretty good about the fact that I procrastinated for several years. Why? Because I broke ranks with the modern society and decided to install an old fashioned wood closet shelf.

The wood closet shelf consisted of one shelf and a coat rack. I used a couple of pieces of pre-primed 1x4 stock, trimmed down to 1x2, a closet dowel, and a 14.5 inch wide piece of high end ½” thick plywood. To dress up the front face of the plywood shelf, I married up to it a section of 1x2.5 inch material. This created effectively a skirt on the front side of the wood closet shelf.

I then painted the wood closet shelf and stained the closet dowel. With the paint and stain dry, I attached the closet dowel to the 1x2x14.5 inch end supports using two pieces of closet dowel hardware.

Stepping back and admiring my work, I just have to say that the end product looked much better than the modern day wire closet shelving. It was also much more securely fastened to the closet walls and it was significantly more functional. No more worries about items slipping through the wire spaces, or the blankets and pillows getting creases imprinted into them.
If you have a closet shelf project to do, I’d highly recommend taking a little extra time and building one the “old fashion” way, with wood. You’ll like the end product.