DIY Open Shelving Kitchen

The kitchen shelving needed an upgrade after some years of wear on the first ones, and I wanted to elevate the look while keeping a “farmhouse/cabin” theme. But, as usual, I didn’t want to spend a lot, so I decided to give this kitchen an easy DIY open shelving upgrade. Let me know show you how.

Demo Day:

First things first, I had to take down the old shelving. They were still functional, but I didn’t want them, so I put them out by the road along the fence with a red spray-painted free sign in hopes that they would disappear.

Surprisingly, they were picked up within the hour. Now I had no turning back! So I patched up the wall holes with joint compound and prepared the room for paint. Along with the shelving update, I decided to get rid of the almond colored walls and give everything a brighter feel with a fresh coat of white paint.

Here is the kitchen after primer and paint, looking nice and fresh.

I also later painted the almond countertops white. You can check that here. The countertop paint even turned that small section with the dark green counter white! You can’t even tell it was once green.

Pine Board Shelves:

Now let’s make the shelve boards. All of the kitchen shelves are made from one single 30″ x 72″ Pine Farmhouse Project Panel I found at Lowes for under $125. The panel is 1.5 inches thick, which gives a nice solid feel to the shelves.

This is a full view of the Project Board.

I wanted 10″ deep shelves, so I ripped this board lengthwise on a table saw. With the 30″ width, I now had two-72 inch long x 10″ wide boards and one 72″ long x about 9 3/4″ board since the table saw blade took out a bit with each run. Thankfully I only needed the two true 10″ wide sections and could use the leftover piece for other shelves (actually in the bathroom! more on that later….)

Next, I cut the small shelf sections from the 72″ long boards. 72″ is 6ft, and it worked out perfectly that I needed shelf sections of 1ft, 2ft, and 3 ft = 6ft minus a hair for the table saw blade. Assuming I cut didn’t make any cutting mistakes, I had a perfect amount of board length. I measured 5 times and cut the shelf pieces to length. Thankfully, they were exactly as needed.

Shelving Brackets:

The shelving brackets are easy-to-install, versatile, black metal L-brackets that I found on Amazon.com. Here is a close-up of the bracket. They came with black screws and drywall anchors as well.

Shelf Brackets 10 Inch Wall Brackets L Brackets

Shelf Brackets with Heavy Loading Capacity. Our shelf brackets are made of premium iron that can hold weight well. The brackets can hold about 111lb per pair. Combine the simple shape L brackets and some wood shelf, you can make most use of you wall space and store more items. It is an easy and affordable way for room decorations.

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Shelf Brackets 10 Inch Wall Brackets L Brackets 8PCS Heavy Duty Brackets for Shelves Metal Black Rustic Industrial Brackets for DIY Opening Shelves Project Hardware Included

I liked that I could opt to install the bracket with the wall leg up or down from the shelf. I chose to set the legs “up” so the dishes on the shelving would cover them and help the shelves look more like they were floating. But to each their own.

Here I am setting the shelf brackets on the wall. I tried to connect to wall studs but did end up with a few drywall anchors. They’ve held up fine so far.

I set the lower shelf a standard 18″ above the countertop and then centered the upper shelf in the remaining wall space. Notice the countertops are now white? Yep, I painted them, and they held great up to me crawling all around to place these shelves.

Anyway, each board section has two support brackets near each end, placed in a way that looked pleasing, hopefully! Here are the installed brackets with a “dry fit” of the freshly cut boards. Hello open kitchen shelving! Looking good so far.

Shelf Board Finishing:

To finish the shelf boards, I sanded them smooth and used a pre-stain finish before staining. Then, I applied one coat Early American and two coats American Walnut shown here.

Let the stain fully dry at least 24 hours before applying a protective finish. I used Behr polyurethene in matte that I had leftover from a flooring project.

Install Shelving:

Once everything had time to dry, I used two wooden dowels to connect the two shelf peices at the corner. This is so the shelf moves together as a whole (yes it will move slightly with added weight, its OK!) I didn’t do this with the original shelves and always had a small offset where the two sections butt together. Not this time! Here are the install dowels. I coated them with wood glue and clamped the sections together to dry overnight.