DIY Shelf: Design, Construction and Decoration

A DIY shelving unit is not only simple, but also economical. If you have never made anything with your own hands before, then a shelving unit is the first step for a beginner.

What is a shelving unit? It is a type of furniture consisting of shelves combined into a single structure. A shelving unit can be used for flowers, shoes, personal hygiene products or tools.

There are no restrictions on the use of shelves, except for weight ones. You should not load the shelf with too much weight, because it is not a rack.

DIY Shelf — A shelving unit, as we know, is a cabinet without walls.

Wooden furniture with your own hands — Long gone are the days when a bookcase was the highlight of a living room and the hostesses of society salons competed to see whose was cooler.

Content

The benefits of DIY
We decide on the design and construction
Necessary materials
Necessary tools
Manufacturing process: step-by-step instructions
The final stage is decoration
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The benefits of DIY

Do you know what the advantages of any "hand-made" product are?

Savings in their purest form. Often, when buying a ready-made item, you have to overpay for the brand, for low-quality material purchased in bulk and the work of the master.
Compliance with all requirements. You make a shelving unit according to certain technical characteristics: width, height, number of shelves, material, color. Of course, stores offer a huge variety of options for any furniture. Shelving units are no exception. But most often, products manufactured on a machine are measured in whole units. You can make an interior item that is ideal in size and style.

There are other advantages to making a shelving unit with your own hands, but all the main ones are highlighted.

DIY Shelf Rack for Bathroom — It is also a shelf height from the floor, sometimes on wheels, or a rack for a relatively small operational load, not attached to the floor, walls or ceiling.

bookcase — Nowadays, most of the shelves in everyday life are used to place indoor plants.

We decide on the design and construction

The design of the shelving unit depends entirely on your wishes and possibilities. If we are talking about the shelving unit as a decorative element, then you can choose an interesting material: rattan or glass, beech or forged metal.

Wooden shelving unit — A multifunctional piece of cabinet furniture that can effectively zone a room and be aesthetically significant in the interior.

Wooden flower stand — Here, the openwork design of the shelving unit works for functionality: plants can be placed on a minimal floor area using the shelving unit so that they do not shade each other and it is convenient for the owner to care for them.

Naturally, only a true master who knows how to work with this or that material and has the necessary tools can do this with his own hands.

DIY Flower Rack — For the same purpose, special shelves for flowers are constructed, but they are usually stationary, attached to some kind of base, while a shelf is movable.

Speaking about the applied sense, it is quite easy to make a shelving unit with your own hands. The design consists of two vertical bases and horizontal shelves between them. There are an incredible number of mounting options and they depend on the material of manufacture.

The easiest way is to screw the shelves to the base from the outside. This assembly method is relevant for a wooden shelf. If you think that this will not be beautiful, we can reassure you, there are plugs for screws of different colors.
Each shelf has holes in the corners, into which posts are inserted, separating the shelves from each other. Most often, such a design is offered for plastic shelves for bathtubs or shoes. But glass shelves can also be organized in a similar way. The dividing posts can be chromed. Although metal can also be assembled into a shelf in a similar way.
The variety of fittings allows you to choose fastening elements hidden in the body of the product.

make a bookcase — Shelves assembled using hidden mortise joinery are rarely made independently, and are expensive to buy.

Glass shelving unit for bathroom — Even today, a shelving unit can become a key element of interior design.

These are the main examples of the design of the shelves. You can improvise or use decor. Thus, forged elements can give the simplest and most inexpensive wooden product not only charm, but also luxury.

Wooden shelving unit with three shelves — The most durable is a wooden shelf assembled in an overlapping manner.

Necessary materials

How to make a shelving unit with your own hands is clear. You should decide on the materials needed for this matter.

It is very easy to assemble a plastic shelf unit bought in a store; just assemble the “constructor” according to the instructions and enjoy using it.
When working with wood, in addition to the main material, you will need fastening elements (screws, nails, corners). Note that wood is a material susceptible to mechanical damage: wood dries out, wood rots, insects eat it. To protect your work of art, you should cover it with varnish or wax. To add color, you can use paint or colorants.
If we are talking about metal, then we should study the issue in more detail. In an apartment, an iron shelf can be used quite rarely. In the kitchen - stainless steel, in the bathroom - stainless steel, in the hallway - stainless steel. Ferrous metal is suitable only for tools.
Glass can be used as a material for shelves, either individually or as part of a general design.

Design and engineering — It may have four or more legs, between which shelves are installed. As a rule, it does not have back or side walls.

Shelf for the living room — Those who want to learn how to make rustic things are faced with two tasks: aging the wood while simultaneously increasing its decorative qualities and surface strength, and, as concerns rack-type shelves, adjusting the joints of the branch cuts for the racks.

Working with all these materials requires certain skills and tools. What can we say about more complex materials.

Wooden Shoe Rack — A type of shelving made from overlapping planks is the frameless utility shelving-ladder (with sides made from one board each).

DIY Shoe Rack — Use decorative forging, ropes or leather inserts

Necessary tools

What tools do you need to assemble a shelving unit yourself?, It's quite difficult to say, it directly depends on the material.

When working with plastic:

hands and intelligence.

If the material is wood:

screwdriver or drill;
hammer;
sandpaper;
brushes

If the shelf is iron:

welding machine;
Bulgarian;
sandpaper.

Glass Shelf:

glass cutter;
sandpaper;
grinder (for cutting jumper pipes).

Wooden bookcase — To ensure the strength of the extension ladder shelf, its shelves should be box-shaped and not protruding.

DIY Mobile Shelf — Some knowledge about measures to ensure this will be useful not only for furniture design.

It is not a fact that all the tools will be useful to you, but you should not start work without having the basic technical means at hand.

wooden bathroom shelf — The rack-type shelves have the highest ratio of strength to the amount of material required for production.

Original ideas for flower stands — The same openwork will allow you to express yourself in the item and get a unique thing with a minimum consumption of material.

Manufacturing process: step-by-step instructions

It is quite difficult to say how to make a shelving unit if you do not know what material and design option you will choose.

The process looks like this:

choice of material;
choice of design;
measuring the height and width of the product;
making horizontal shelves (the size must take into account the vertical posts
manufacturing of vertical support);
assembly;
decoration.

The plan is quite general, but the design of the shelving unit is not a standard of craftsmanship, but only the first stage.

DIY Wooden Shelf — The rack shelves are assembled using glue and pins that pass through the shelves and enter deep holes (sockets) along the axis of the racks.

Shelf for the kitchen — You can make a shelf from any more or less durable and workable material, but novice furniture makers should not get carried away with their variety.

The final stage is decoration

If you are interested in the question of how to make a shelf with your own hands, the answer is in front of you. But how to decorate a ready-made shelf? The easiest way is painting. Choose a suitable color and paint your shelf on a stand made of wood or metal. Use decorative forging, ropes or leather inserts. Wood goes well with metal, textiles, plants.