Steps for Building Closet Shelves

Need more room at home? Put the vertical space in your closets to work by learning how to build closet shelves!

I had been dreaming of this project since before we bought our house. In every closet except our master closet, there's just a single wire shelf and a rod. Since the guest bedroom and office closet don't hold any hanging clothes, there's a lot of wasted vertical space.

How to Install Custom Closet Shelves | TheTurquoiseHome.com

I'm all for using vertical space for storage. Then the upcoming arrival (born in 2014) lit a fire under my 27-week pregnant self, and I got to work building a closet full of storage. I had been using our fourth bedroom and its walk-in closet as a storage room for all sorts of unused decorations, yard sale piles, consignment stashes and more.

Now I need that room for the baby, so I've moved all of the clutter into the dining room and have to fit it into the guest bedroom closet. Eek! A lot of purging will have to happen for that, but in the meantime, I've added shelves to the closet!

At one point I considered buying a closet system, pre-made and ready to install. But when I tried to design one with a closet company, I quickly realized I only needed shelves, not baskets and specialty hanging racks, and I was going to be pretty picky about shelf sizes. So I decided to DIY it.

Side Note: I love DIY for sure, but the older and busier I get, the more intentional I want to be about my DIY projects. Yes, they are usually cheaper than store-bought products, but time is money, and I want to spend mine wisely. If I can find what I need in a store and save up for it, I'll buy it. But if I can't find what I want and can DIY it to fit my needs, then I'll take the DIY route. That's why I chose DIY for these shelves. I wanted them customized, and I couldn't find anything like them elsewhere (or didn't have the time and patience to look).

Supplies Needed to DIY Closet Shelves

3/4 inch thick MDF for the shelves – I used 2 sheets and cut them down, but you will need to measure your space and buy the number of sheets you require.
Measuring Tape
Circular Saw or Miter Saw
Table Saw – I had my boards ripped down to size at the hardware store, but if you want to do it yourself, you will need a table saw or circular saw.
1 x 2 boards (for the support boards around the sides)
1 x 3 boards (for the shelf support bracket systems)
Brackets – I used brackets that were 8 inches by 10 inches. I placed the 8-inch side vertically and the 10-inch side underneath the shelves, horizontally.
Caulk
Spackling
Paint
Primer
Wood Screws
Stud Finder
Level
Ruler

Find all of the tools I use and love HERE!

How To Build Closet Shelves

Step 1. Work out your measurements

I started by measuring exactly what I wanted to store in my closet, which told me what size the shelves needed to be. I knew I still wanted my filing cabinet to fit, and I wanted my sewing machine to sit on the floor under the bottom shelf. So, on one side of the closet, I made a shelf just higher than the filing cabinet, and on the other wall, I made the shelf just higher than my sewing machine case.

I figured out how deep I wanted my shelves to be and how far apart they should sit. Then I measured several things I wanted to fit on them, like my appliance organization binder and some cubbies I already had.

I decided to keep the existing wire shelf in case a future owner wanted to turn the closet back into a clothing closet with a hanging rod. And … I didn't feel like taking down a perfectly good shelf, even if it is wire.

My top shelf is 13 inches deep, my second shelf is 14 inches deep, and the bottom two shelves are 18 inches deep. I made them the width of the wall, obviously. Well, one side had to be the full width of the wall, and the other side was the width of the wall minus the depth of the adjoining shelf. Make sense?

Step 2. Buy your supplies

I used 2 sheets of 3/4 inch thick MDF for the shelves. I had the team at Lowe's cut them down to depth for me, then cut the lengths at home with my circular saw. At one point I thought I would have to buy 3 MDF sheets to get all of my cuts, but I managed to make it work with two.

I use 1×2s for the support boards around the sides and 1×3s for the shelf support systems, so you'll need those measurements before you go to the store. I also picked up brackets (from the closet section), caulk, spackling, paint, primer and screws. Read through the whole process and make a list so you don't have to make several trips to the store.

Step 3. Prime & cut your boards

I laid everything out in the garage and gave it all two coats of primer. It's much easier to do this before the pieces go into the closet. You'll still need a top coat or two of paint, but priming first saves time and a lot of trim work. Once they were primed, I used my circular saw to cut the shelves to the lengths I needed.

You could also cut first and prime afterward.

Cut your shelves to the correct length, the 1 x 2s to the same length as your shelves, and the 1 x 3s to 8 inches, one for every bracket you'll use.

Step 4. Mark your shelves

I know this is a super fuzzy photo, but you can kind of see where I marked out my shelf lines…

I used a level and a ruler to mark off my shelf lines. That way, when I nailed up my support boards, it was easy to follow the lines and keep everything straight from the start. It worked like a charm!

Step 5. Nail up your support boards

I nailed all of the 1×2s along the wall, following the lines I'd drawn, using my nail gun and compressor. Then I marked the studs with my stud finder and screwed each board into a stud. We don't want these things falling down!

Step 6. Put up your shelves

If you're building shelves in a closet like mine, you can leave the shelves outside the closet and bring them in once the support boards are in place.

But if you're putting shelves in a shallow wall closet, you'll want to put the boards in the closet before you nail up your support boards. Otherwise you won't be able to maneuver them into place, since they will span the length of the wall and the 1 x 2s on the wall will get in the way. Clear as mud? I hope that makes sense!

Step 7. Install bracket supports and brackets.

Cut your 1 x 3 boards into 8-inch lengths, one for each bracket you need.

Because my brackets needed to screw into something flush with the shelf support boards, I nailed the 1 x 3s under the 1 x 2s. I found the studs and screwed the support boards into them as well. Then I screwed the brackets into the support boards and up into the underside of the shelves. I bought quite a few more brackets than I ended up using.

My shelves are 58 inches long and are plenty sturdy with 2-3 brackets per shelf.

Where the shelves met, I made sure to put a bracket there to support the joint and both shelves.

Update 5 years later: the shelves are still perfectly straight after years of heavy use!

Step 7. Caulk and Patch

Ah yes, my good friends Alex and Patch. They always make everything look better! I caulked all of the seams and patched every nail and screw hole. Easy peasy! (I LOVE the patch plus primer spackling from 3M.)

Step 8. Paint

Yay!! This is the last step before you can get all of your junk out of the open space and back into the closet. Hallelujah!! I gave each shelf and support board two coats of semi-gloss paint. I chose Simply White by Benjamin Moore because it matches our trim, and it's the same color I used on our board and batten in the living room.

Finished!!

Isn't it just beautiful (if I do say so myself)?? Am I the only person who gets giddy about new closet shelving that nobody will see but me?

And it's done! There are a lot of steps, but none of them are very hard. It just takes time and patience. It took me 5 weeks from start to finish, but that's because I worked on it a little at a time while working from home and pregnant, with a 3-year-old and a husband who is a football coach in the middle of the season. So if you have large chunks of time to spend on it, you could probably knock it out in a couple of days.

Now it's time to start purging and moving stuff back in. Wish me luck!!

Updated 5 years later: I still love these shelves and get a TON of use out of them. I need to put them in our hallway coat closet too, to make the most of some vertical space.

This is how the shelves look today: