How to build cheap and easy DIY closet shelves

Learn how to build closet shelves for any closet in your home. These DIY closet shelves are inexpensive and easy to customize for any size closet.

My sons’ shared closet is finished and I have never been so excited about a closet before! 

The closets in our house aren’t anything to write home about – all of our bedroom closets are standard double closets with sliding doors.

When I started planning how to make this room work as a shared bedroom for both of my sons, I knew there needed to be way more usable storage in the closet to hold all of their stuff. So I designed and built custom DIY closet shelves, gave everything a fresh coat of paint, and now it is perfect!

In this post I’m sharing how to plan and build custom closet shelves to perfectly fit your closet. The shelves I designed work especially well in a child’s room, but you can also use this basic tutorial to build shelves in all kinds of closets.

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Planning the new closet layout

For those who are new here, I am in the middle of a complete redo of my sons’ bedroom. 

I am transforming my 4 year old’s bedroom into a room he can share with his two year old brother. (Baby boy #3 is coming this summer so we’re on a bit of a deadline!)

This is how the closet looked before.

One bar for hanging clothes and one high shelf. Plus a small bookcase I stuck in there to add a bit more storage. 

Not a great closet for anyone, but considering how few hanging clothes my son has, it was basically just one huge waste of space! I knew I wanted to create my own custom closet system. That way I could configure it exactly how I want – plus it would be way cheaper! 

When I started figuring out the design, I tried to keep several things in mind:

• It needed to have lots of shelf space for storing toys, shoes, clothes, etc. and my 2 and 4 year olds needed to be able to reach as many of the shelves as possible. (I definitely want to encourage them getting out and putting away their own clothing!) 
• I also wanted it to continue to function years down the road when they are older (or someone else has this room) so the area for hanging clothes had to be big enough to fit adult clothing.
• And since this is a closet with sliding doors, you can only access one half of the closet at a time. So whatever built-ins I created needed to make sense with only one door open at a time.

I came up with a few ideas and then used painters tape to see how they would actually work in the closet.

In the end I decided the design on the far right above was the winner. 

There were plenty of low shelves/cubbies for storing all kinds of stuff, a long hanging bar, and a high shelf above it to put absolutely all of the vertical space to good use. 

The boys won’t be able to reach the clothes that are hanging on the bar for quite some time, but almost none of their everyday clothing needs to be hung up, so that wasn’t a deal breaker.

How to Build DIY Closet Shelves

Supplies

• A sheet of MDF cut into 14” strips – My cubbies are 14” deep but you can use whatever measurement works best for you based on your closet size. Another option is to use 12″ MDF shelf boards if you want to avoid having to rip your MDF down to the correct width.
• 1″x2″ pine boards to create the side shelf supports (two 14” pieces for each shelf)
• 1″x2″ poplar or pine boards to create a nice thick facing for each shelf (amount depends on size of your closet and shelves)
• spackling and caulk – for filling any tiny gaps and nail holes for a perfect finish
• white paint (or the paint color of your choice)
• small foam paint roller and paint brush

Tools

• miter saw or circular saw – for cutting your wood planks to the correct lengths
• nail gun – You can also make this with a hammer and nails, but it will take a lot longer. This is the nail gun I have and it is very easy to use.
• stud finder – this is by far the best, easiest stud finder I’ve ever used
• level
• tape measure

Remove the old closet rod and shelves

First step, remove everything that was already in the closet including the closet rod, shelf, and shelf supports that were there before. 

I patched up the nail holes with spackle and then gave the whole closet including the trim a fresh coat of white paint.

If they are still in good shape, you may be able to reuse some of the old components of the closet. It will save you money and time, since they are already cut to the correct size.

I was able to reuse the clothing rod and top shelf that were already in my closet; I just rehung them higher than they were originally.

Cut your shelves to size

My closet plan involves building square cubbies, but the first step is to build three simple shelves spanning the closet.  

I built my shelves using MDF. I’ve used MDF to build several different closet organizers now and I think it’s a great choice. The boards are always perfectly straight and smooth which makes them easy to work with and MDF is usually quite a bit cheaper than plywood.

If you want more info on choosing the best materials for your closet shelves, there’s a lot more info in this post.

Your shelves should be 1/4″ shorter than the width of your closet. That will allow you to move them into place more easily.

As you can see, I prefer to paint all of the pieces of a project like this before installing them. You will still need to do a quick paint touch up at the end, but painting each piece separately is so much faster than trying to maneuver in all of those tight corners.

Attach the shelves to the wall

Attaching the shelves to the wall is easy. All you need are some inexpensive 1″x2″ boards.

Cut your 1×2 supports to the same size as the width of your shelves – mine were 14″

Screw these shelf supports into the studs on each side wall of the closet. If you don’t have studs where you need them, you can also use screws and anchors to attach these. You want them to be attached securely because they will be supporting the weight of the shelves and whatever is stored on them.

Then set the shelf boards in place. (Be sure to use a level when hanging your shelves!)  

If you are building regular shelves rather than cubbies like mine, you also need to add more 1×2 supports along the back wall of the closet.

Simply cut another 1″x2″ board the length of your shelf minus 2 inches (to leave room around the side supports) and screw it to the studs along the back wall of the closet. (Again, don’t forget the level!)

If you are building cubbies like me, you can skip the back shelf support. The vertical pieces separating each cubby will provide plenty of support. 

Add the optional cubby dividers

To create the cubby dividers, cut more MDF to the size you need. I used 14”x14” for the bottom two rows because my shelves are 14″ deep and 14″ high. 

The top row supports are 9″x14″ because the shelves are 14″ deep and 9″ high.

To install them, I started on the bottom row and slid each vertical support into place. I nailed a few nails into each divider through the shelf above to secure it in place.

Then I added the middle row of cubby dividers and the top row the same way.

Add wood facing to your shelves

Finally, I added 1″x2″ poplar facing to each of my shelves. This is completely optional but gives the whole thing such a great, finished look. 

Poplar boards have gotten increasingly expensive over the past few years, so if you are looking for a less expensive option, 1″x2″ pine boards will also work.

If you do use pine for your closet shelves, be sure to use a good primer before painting. Pine is notorious for bleeding through and yellowing white paint if it isn’t sealed well. I like to use oil-based primer any time I am painting pine wood white to prevent yellowing.

Adding the facing is pretty simple. Cut 1×2 boards to the length of your shelves and attach them with a few finishing nails.

Then measure the openings along each vertical support, cut your 1x2s to size, and nail them in place.

The poplar is thicker than the MDF, so it will overhang the shelves a bit. For the horizontal shelves, align the facing with the top edge of the shelf so the extra thickness hangs down. For the vertical supports, you can center the facing with the MDF so there is a small amount of extra thickness to each side.

Once the framing is in place, it will look like the shelves are custom made from thick wood. It’s a small detail that makes a huge difference to the finished look.

Apply caulk and spackle

The final step is filling the nail holes with spackling and caulking all of the seams.

I am always amazed at how beautifully caulk and wood filler fix up any imperfections.  (If you aren’t sure of the difference between caulk and wood filler, I have a whole post on when to use wood filler and when to use caulk.)

The Finished Closet

Finally I added the DIY fabric storage cubes I shared last week as well as these inexpensive white plastic baskets I picked up at Target.

And finally, I filled up the closet with all of the boys’ things.

There are clothes in all of the fabric bins, shoes and accessories in the plastic bins, a large basket to toss clothes in as they outgrow them (on the left), a basket full of puzzles (on the right), and extra storage on the high shelf.

And now for the best part of any DIY tutorial – the before and after photos:

What a change! There is so much more storage space now, plus it is gorgeous!

This closet organizer works well with the sliding doors, but I actually ended up just removing the doors all together. The closet looked good enough not to need doors and removing them made it easier to access everything.

We had these exact same sliding closet doors in our master bedroom and in there, I was able to reconfigure the doors to be hinged double doors. It was a huge improvement being able to see the entire closet at one time!

Update: Since sharing these DIY closet shelves, I’ve upgraded my fabric storage cubes to DIY wooden storage cubes made from gorgeous cedar planks.

As great as the fabric bins were, these are so much better!