Many moons ago (aka January 2016) I created a shelving system for my craft paint using cardboard boxes. It’s served me quite well as my hoard expanded, but I’ve finally reached the point where I want something little sturdier and a little more woody.

The total cost for this project was $16.80 for the wood, plus a little wood glue. Not too shabby! 😀

So I headed out to Lowe’s and grabbed one 1/4in x 2in x 2ft and eight 1/4in x 3in x 2ft poplar boards. I already had the Stanley speed square and the Elmer’s Wood Glue Max.

I didn’t do any pre-planning for the bookshelf beyond ‘it needs to be about three inches wide’, so I had no clue how well the paint would fit on the shelves or how many shelves I would need. My guessing turned out great, so impulse building ftw! 😀

After eyeballing the existing cardboard shelves, I cut the one 1/4in x 2in x 2ft piece in half, so I had two 1ft lengths. Then I glued those to the middle of the outside of one of the 1/4in x 3in x 2ft using the wood glue. I used my speed square to prop up the wall and make sure they came out square.

Thankfully the paint fit quite well! I could get 18 2oz craft paint containers on a shelf and six shelves meant I had just enough room for the current hoard.  They were a little snug, but it was still easy to remove them from the dry-fit test run.

After disassembling the dry-fit, I started glueing in each shelf. First I filled in the row with paint and then laid the board on top, to make sure everything would fit nicely. I made sure the edges were even with the board below using the speed square.

I used rubber bands linked together to put tension on the tops of the side boards. (You can see them in the very first picture). This added pressure to the shelves to help hold them in place, since I was moving the whole build around to check the alignment. I had to take them off as I added new boards, otherwise it was too tight to slide them into place.

The final product looks great and it takes up less room on the workbench, which was the goal. Hopefully this one will also be less prone to sliding apart (like the cardboard version) and easier to work with.

At 18 paints a row and 7 rows, I’ve got room for 126 craft paints. I can, in theory, use the top row to hit 144 paints, but alas, the hoard is tapped out.

I am a little alarmed that I have this many paints… but it also makes me want to go out and get some more since and fill that top row! 😉