Wood Closet Shelving

Stain or paint every board before you cut and build, and let it dry overnight. A slatted shelf system has dozens of inside faces and slots that are miserable to finish after assembly and trivial to finish as flat boards on sawhorses. You'll touch up the cut ends at the end.

Each support is a ladder: two 81-1/2" 1x4 legs with three 15-1/2" 2x4 rungs between them, glued and screwed with the 2-1/2" screws, two per joint. Build one support per 3 feet of closet, two minimum.

Pilot-drill the 1x4s — screws near the end of 3/4" stock split it. If you're using iron-pipe rods, mount them to the supports now, while everything lies flat; installing pipe flanges inside a standing closet is knuckle work.

Cut the shelf boards to your closet's length. Stand the two OUTER leg supports, thread two shelf boards through at the bottom shelf and two near the top, and screw them to the legs, flush to the legs' inside faces — that ties the ends of the system together and makes it self-standing.

Now place the middle supports: use a level, and if rods are involved, let the rod itself dictate where the middle legs stand — hang it in its sockets and slide the leg until the rod is level and seated. Then fill in the remaining shelf boards, outer boards first, middle two spaced evenly, 1-1/2" screws throughout.

Last: screw the unit to the wall studs. It's stable freestanding, but a closet gets yanked on — anti-tip screws are two minutes now versus a very bad surprise later.

Measure between any two leg supports, cut extra 2x4 rungs and 1x4 boards to that span, and drop in as many partial shelves as the closet's contents want — shoe height, purse height, whatever. This is the step where the system earns the word 'custom.'

Where you want a hanging rod without iron-pipe prices: add a 15-1/2" 2x4 stood TALL (on edge) at each end of the rod run, screw rod sockets to the blocking, and cut a wood dowel to fit between them. Same function as the pipe, small fraction of the cost, and the sockets are replaceable if a dowel ever wears.

Touch up stain on all the cut ends, load the closet, and enjoy shelves that don't bow under winter sweaters.