A by-the-seat-of-our-pants plan to DIY some entryway shoe storage yielded pure awesomeness. And, it was free. Tired of not having a place to leave our snow covered shoes, Pete manufactured a shelf made of scrap lumber we had in the basement from another project. You can’t really tell in this picture, but there are remnant pipes from when a radiator had been installed against the wall which are a general obstruction when it comes to maintaining an orderly entryway/shoe space.
To avoid dealing with the pipes, I mentioned to Pete that the baseboard trim would probably support a shelf with ease, because the top lip is about 1″ wide. This also validated the idea that we could easily extend the shelf to be the full width of the available area (which is 41.5″, BTW). And when he asked about how I wanted it to look, I suggested a design that I’ve seen used regularly with teak benches and coffee tables (and spa shower mats like this one from Amazon). Highly coveted, normally out of my price range, but sleek and pretty.
He vanished into his man work cave for an hour while I worked on another project (glass cutting), and emerged with several evenly cut, finely sanded 41.5″ mini-boards. To make these mini-boards (uhh, slats), he simply cut a 12″x41.5″ board into strips and sanded it down well. I mentioned that it was free, because it was actually a shelf that used to be part of the bathroom that we demoed in the basement. But if you wanted to try and make this yourself, know that you could get away with buying just one 12″ wide board of whatever premium wood you crave (real teak, perhaps?).
Gotta admit, I didn’t do anything but snap a few pictures. It was cold in the basement. Pete cut and hand-sanded every slat and spacer, used a little wood glue for reinforcement, and then found another reason to pull out the pancake compresser and nail gun (much love for this, wise investment).
From beneath, he added two support pieces that would rest against the entryway floor. This was a proactive move just in case the shelf begins to bow under shoe weight.
And then it was installed! It’s not attached to the trim in any way, just sits on the top of the trim (so if I need the space back, or get around to doing these floors, I can move it easily).
I’m still considering staining this a darker brown, and would also weatherproof it at the same time. Wet shoe water is still going to fall to the floor through the slats, but I can more easily retrofit a doormat (chop something apart) to wrap around the old radiator pipes since the shelves will disguise the hack.
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