Hello, and welcome back to the Cuban Redneck DIY Channel. Today’s video is, I guess, part two or the follow-up to the video about the laundry room drying rack where I mentioned that I would be addressing the laundry room shelves in the upcoming week. This DIY Wood Shelving (Laundry Storage) project requires a little more woodworking skills than my average tutorial because of the wood finish. I am starting with pre-made red oak laundry room cabinets from Lowe’s. These are relatively affordable, and with a bit of sanding and a can of clear spray, you can make them look like custom cabinets. That was the look I was seeking when I mounted them. I could have gone with white, but that would have just looked ordinary.

Now that the laundry room cabinets are in place, I need to finish the job by adding floating shelves. I knew going into this that I would face an added expense by going with a natural wood look, and that is ok. If you have white laundry room cabinets, you could use white melamine boards and save some money. Nevertheless, I recommend putting a hardwood edge on them. I know many people consider that to be an 80s look where many kitchen and bathroom cabinets had an oak finger pull piece at the bottom of the door and drawers, but it does help quite a bit and improves longevity. Besides, what is more 80s than white wire shelves? Even today is the preferred choice for many home builders. Home Depot and Lowe’s ideas for laundry room shelves are the same old white wire shelves from Closetmaid and Rubbermaid. If you don’t have access to a table saw, Lowe’s now sells .75 inch square dowels in both 36 and 48-inch lengths, which are ideal for this doing hardwood edges on MDF, Plywood, and Particleboard.

I have seen many videos on how to build floating shelves in the laundry room and some excellent, inspiring small laundry room design ideas on YouTube. However, in actuality, the great majority is focused on using off-the-shelf, or should I say pre-made shelves! The issue with that is your project cost can balloon to two to three times what your budget is. Pre-made laundry room shelves at Home Depot or Lowe’s can anywhere from $25 to $50 and even more, where shelves made from raw material like plywood, MDF, particleboard range from $10 to $20. I chose to use raw material, and this may be scary for many, but know that many big box stores will cut these sheets for you at little or no cost! Just don’t show up at peak hours like on Sunday or Saturday morning.

For my laundry room shelves, I opted for ¾ inch Lauan plywood, which I purchase from Lowe’s in 2’X4′ sheets because none of the 4’X8′ sheets matched my cabinets’ finish. I paid twelve dollars and change, but know that this is a considerable price hike since I had purchased these for under ten dollars just a few months ago. So, shop around! For the hardwood edges, I chose ½ inch X 3 inch X 48-inch red oak boards, which I ripped on the table saw into .75 inch strips and two 1 inch by 1 inch by 36-inch aluminum angles.

Making laundry room shelves is no different than making any other type of shelf. You have width and length dimensions to meet. You have to keep in mind the width of the hardwood edging. If you are using one, you must add it to the width of your shelf.

I floated my laundry room shelves with the 1 inch by 1 inch by 36-inch aluminum angles I purchased at Lowe’s. I recommend you cut these to about a quarter-inch shorter than they need to be. For my application, it was 11 ¾. Mounting these is pretty straightforward – center them, mark your spot, drill a pilot hole and screw them into the side of your cabinets. I had extra aluminum, so I made a center support bracket on each shelf. These are just short 3 inch pieces of aluminum mounted on the wall using drywall anchors plugs.

As for the finish! For years my go-to clear coat has been Deft interior satin clear wood finish, but it has been hard to get as of late. I recently started using Krylon COLORmaxx satin clear, and although it is not the quality of Deft, especially in the way it prays, it is not bad and perhaps the best at the $4 price point! To prep for the finish, I gave all boards a good sanding with a sanding block and 100 grid to get rid of all saw blade marks and to make sure the edges were even with the plywood boards. I then proceeded to a 220 grid foam block. After the first coat of clear, I gave it another once over with 220 and a final coast of Krylon COLORmaxx satin clear.

As I said in the video, the only part of this build that is a little outside what many would consider a laundry room makeover are the two oversize wings I made to fit on top of the cabinets. However, take a look at the video. I think this may be something a lot of people may find useful. What I did is instead of cutting the shelf to the cabinets dept 12 inches, I cut them to 16. Four inches may not sound like a lot, but it is handy for storing large bins and, in my case, the home theater receiver and a subwoofer amplifier.

My name is JC, and I want to thank you for stopping by and forward to having you as a subscriber at the Cuban Redeck DIY Chanel, where we make things cheap!