Building Custom Shelves in my Laundry Room with the Farmhouse Hens

So I have this Rolling Pantry that I built for my kitchen that totally beat up my 100 year old hardwood floor in there because it was really heavy. I replaced my pantry with a (much lighter) one from Amazon leaving me my old pantry to do something with. When my Laundry room remodel came around I knew exactly how I was going to recycle it!

I took the beadboard off the back, pulled off all the 1×4 trim, removed the castors and unscrewed the 2x8s. I used the bead board in my last post about this room when I installed my counter top.

So, I have this bizarre awkward corner space that I’m not gonna bother explaining why it exists – this is an old house and “character” just happens all over the place and sometimes its just weird. When I first planned out this room I had actually anticipated putting the machine on the left but as soon as my plan hit reality it became clear that that was NOT the best way to utilize this space.

So, my weird awkward corner space ended up behind my machine and now its a black hole because literally anything that falls back there will never be seen again.

At first I was going to build shelves here and even after I decided the machine would be on this side I still thought I would build open shelves here above the machine…

But I would never be able to reach them…

I gave up.

I added a couple 2x4s for support and then simply covered it all with 1xs. (Like with everything in my home I am always determined to use what I have on hand. In this case the 1×12 came from the barn, I don’t know where the 1×10 on the bottom even came from and the 1x8s are leftovers from another project.)

Moving on to still wanting shelves in this room though.

As far as I can tell there USED to be a door here on the left side. This is the 104 year old outside wall of the house but sometime, LONG before me, there was definitely a door here cut into the siding.

By the time I got here this doorway was framed in and plastered over so I’m pretty sure this door was even before my grandparents’ time too.

I think it MAY have been the back door of the house before the screened in porch was added in 1925… So, I have this weird cut out that I sheet rocked back in 2015.

This was my Shelving Challenge.

I decided to go ahead and use my 2x8s from my pantry but I was going to need to cut them at an angle to make it possible to still open the door on the upper cabinet. I also had a couple of long 1x8s leftover so I knew I had enough lumber to work with.

I measured all the shelves to go from the corner to the old house siding, then I cut them all at that length. And then I nipped them off at the sharpest angle my miter saw would give me.

I knew I wasn’t going to be putting much weight on these shelves so I just put 4″ screws in at angles through the bottoms of them into the studs behind – leveling as I went.

With the shelves “floating” I covered my angled cut with a 1×8 which also served to cover the gap between the wall and the cabinet. With 1x4s I trimmed out all of my shelves and also added 1×4 trim across the top of the large board I added to cover my black hole, the cabinets and my top shelf here, to make them all look connected and deliberate.

Because I was recycling pieces used to build something else I did have to do a bit more fixing with wood putty but it was totally worth it because, ya know what? I didn’t have to buy a single piece of lumber for this entire project!

I either had it on hand or the majority of it came from my old pantry.

Already I am so totally thrilled with how this room is turning out, next up: PAINT!

(Yes that is a washer/dryer combo machine by LG and I absolutely LOVE it. In about 2 1/2 hours it washes and dries my clothes without needing an outside vent and using a LOT less water than a regular machine. It also plugs in to a regular wall outlet unlike dryers that require a much bigger receptacle. Cheers to never forgetting my clothes in the washing machine again lol! Oh and YEP it is kinda beat up and dented, I purchased it “brand new” from a scratch and dent place.)

Make sure and check out the creative shelving ideas from the rest of the Farmhouse Hens this month!

DIY Pantry with Updated Wire Shelving

Leanna at FaeriesandFauna! Blog / Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest / Twitter

Wood Crate Storage Shelves

Chas at Chas’ Crazy Creations! Blog / Facebook / Pinterest

Click here to go to her home page!

Michelle at Our Crafty Mom! Blog / Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest / Twitter

How To Paint A Dated Farmhouse Shelf

Sam at Raggedy Bits! Blog / Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest / Twitter