I certainly didn’t invent the wheel when it comes to these shelves. A quick search will find you a ton of great tutorials (like this one) that will help you on your merry way. Our bathroom was lacking in the shelf department so I got some pipes and wood and went to town.
I knew I wanted my brackets to curve rather than come straight out of the wall, so I bought a few more pieces of piping than what you’d need if you kept them straight. (I ordered mine from Home Hardware and had them delivered directly to my local store. They are sometimes low on stock if you just pop in, and let me tell you nothing sends me into a rage like multiple trips downtown.)
You’ll need the following for two shelves:
1″ galvanized flanges (x8)
1″ x 3″ galvanized nipple (x4)
1″ x 6″ galvanized nipple (x4)
1″ 90 degree elbow (x4)
These are the pieces you need to make one bracket.
It would been quite a bit cheaper to use thinner piping, but I used 2″ thick wood, so it might have looked odd. I would recommend using thinner wood if you were to scale back on the size of the pipes.
I assembled the brackets and sprayed them with Krylon Rust Protector flat black spray paint. No reason for the rust protection component, it was on sale. I gave them three coats in total to make sure they were fully covered.
For the wood I picked up a 2″ x 12″ x 12′ piece of SPF from Home Depot. SPF is relatively cheap compared to other higher grade woods, but I wouldn’t ever use it for something that needed to be precise (my piece was pretty dinged up and warped) but it was fine for a couple of bathroom shelves that are supposed to look “rustic” and “reclaimed” and “insert design buzzword here”. The nice fellow at the store cut it in half for us so we could fit it into our clown car.
6′ piece of SPF
Once we got home, Matt cut one of the halves into three for me, so I had three pieces that were 2 feet long each, two of which I used for the shelves.
I sanded them thoroughly with fine grit paper using my random-orbit sander so they were nice and smooth, taking down the sides and corners to make them look worn. After wiping the shelves with the sleeve of my shirt to remove all the dust, I gave them one coat of Minwax Dark Walnut stain. You can find their color guide here. I wish I’d done a lighter stain as they turned out a little darker than I wanted.
I left the stain to dry. This took what seemed like several years because they had to dry in the garage, which is cold. I had initially made a request to work in the basement but my request was denied. It seems I am too messy and also not careful. When the stain was finally dry, I applied just two coats of Minwax Fast-Drying Polyurethane, which is oil based. I only did two coats because I am lazy and this ALSO took forever to dry. (Garage.)
I was very nervous to hang them, because we only had one shot to get it right since we were drilling into the newly hung wallpaper. Also, I was upset. We couldn’t center the shelves between the toilet and the vanity because of the stud placement. My life was ruined.
I decided where I wanted the first shelf to sit, height-wise, then dropped it down a few inches to account for the bracket curve. We marked where the flanges should go using a level, and Matt drilled them directly into the studs.
We reattached the rest of the bracket and set the shelves on top, making sure they were level and even, and drilled them onto the top flange.
He wears this sweatshirt a lot.
The last step to this project is to put a bunch of stuff on them and take some staged photos. My photography admittedly needs a lot of work, but I’m pretty happy with the way these turned out.
I love my Cat Coquillette print from Society6!
This project was so easy, and not insanely expensive if you have some stuff on hand already (stain, poly, etc.) The bathroom is finally finished, and you can check out the complete makeover here.
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