DIY Decorative Wall Rack

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This wall rack was a fun weekend project and added some much needed character to this empty space! Bonus: It was all made from scraps!! I got the idea from this post from InteriorJems and this post from NeverSkipBrunch.

Here’s a quick video on the whole process.

I started by removing the baseboards because I’m slowly replacing all the baseboards in my house, one room at a time, but this wasn’t necessary for the wall rack alone.

Then I took some leftover beadboard panels and used wood glue and brad nails to attach them to the wall, if I did this again I’d just use the brad nails, I don’t think the glue was necessary. I cut them a few inches more narrow than the wall, I didn’t want this rack going all the way to the edge. I put them pretty close to the ceiling but left about 8 inches at the bottom.

I framed it out with primed 1x2s and I put pocket holes where the shelves would be going. There is a stud at the corner of the wall and that’s what I screwed the 1×2 in to. If I did this project again I’d use 1x3s instead to give myself a little more room for decor.

I used 1x2s as shelves and they covered the pocket holes and the beadboard seams. I attached the shelves with wood glue along the back and sides and shot a few long brad nails into the sides. These shelves aren’t meant to hold anything heavy so this works great!

I added some support pieces to the top with wood glue using scrap pieces of 1x2s and shot some nails in from the bottom, this will give me something to attach the trim to. I used these baseboards for the trim.

I added this quarter round trim to the sides to cover the edge of the beadboard that were showing on the back. I attached that with short brad nails.

Then I spackled, sanded with 220 grit sandpaper and caulked everything.

While the caulk was drying, I installed the new baseboards. If you have these bullnose corners you have to cut them at a 22.5 degree angles and then the caulk will fill it in if it’s not perfect, just get it as close as you can.

I painted this wall rack the same color as the walls, Alabaster by SW.

I used this trim for the railing so items wouldn’t fall off the shelf and to cover the fronts of the shelves to act as a rail. I painted it Accessible Beige by SW. All my baseboards and door trim is also Accessible Beige so it flows nicely with the rest of the house.

On the second shelf down I added 4 pieces of trim instead of just 2 like the rest. I wanted to use this one for artificial succulents. I put this floral foam blocks behind that trim to hold the succulents in place.

And this is how it turned out! It was so simple, inexpensive and fun to build and adds so much more character to what was once a boring wall! I didn’t want to just hang photos or artwork on all my walls, so this was a great solution. You can store different kinds of cutting boards on it, cook books, serving dishes, seasonings and so much more!

What is really neat is that with everything I have done to this house, I get more compliments on this than anything else! And this is something that other people end up doing in their homes too! Like this photo a customer sent me who used my plans to build this.

You can find the plans to build this yourself here. The plans show this built like I did it here in this post, but you could also pre assemble it and put the whole thing up on the wall already together.