Don’t know what to do with that empty wall in your kitchen? Or maybe you want to replace your current cabinets with open shelving – either way, these DIY Open Kitchen Shelves may be just the thing you’re looking for!

When we moved into our house, there was an empty corner between the two doorways that was just begging for some storage….or maybe that was me……anyways – we added a lower cabinet and quartz countertop, which you can see more of in my Easy Faux Shiplap End Cabinet Upgrade post.

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Open Shelving – Yay or Nay?

I’ve always loved the farmhouse look of open shelving since it got popular years ago, but not for my daily dishes – I’m way too lazy to keep them looking magazine-ready. Plus, don’t the dishes get dusty? I’m not dusting dishes. But for knick-knack/spice rack/cookbook storage? Absolutely!

Besides being too lazy to dust dishes, I also like to save money where I can and learn what we can do ourselves. When I looked around online, the length of wood shelves we were looking for (these are almost 5ft long) were running in the hundreds of dollars! Nope. I’ll figure it out myself.

Making The Shelves

There’s definitely a great sense of accomplishment that comes with DIY. It doesn’t hurt that my husband has a ton of wood/metal/fabrication background, but for these shelves you need none of that! It’s basically wood, brackets, wall anchors, and wood stain. Deciding on the brackets was probably the hardest part!

After some research, I went with these brackets because we were installing a backsplash, so we couldn’t have the bracket coming down below the shelf. I love these because you can hide the back brace with whatever is on your shelf. These were less than $20 and hold 100lb per pair! Just make sure to figure out what the depth of your shelves are going to be before ordering brackets. We went with a 2×10 basic pine board for ours, which was also less than $20! So we’re looking at less than $50 for this DIY Open Kitchen Shelves project, which is MUCH more reasonable than hundreds.

Once we chose our board and cut them to the length we’d need (the wood department at Home Depot or Menards should be able to cut them for you if you don’t have the tools), I stained them with Miniwax Wood Finish in Jacobean. I just love staining wood! Even these basic wood boards have such a beautiful grain to them that you’d never notice otherwise! Then I finished them in a quick coat of polyurethane since they’re in the kitchen and would be exposed to moisture and sanded down the edges a little.

We measured out where we wanted our brackets to go and realized that only one set would be able to go directly in a stud, so the other set got some sturdy wall anchors.

TIP: ALWAYS find a stud or use wall anchors when installing heavy shelving or decor. Always.

Then we just placed the stained boards on the brackets, and screwed them in underneath. And that was literally it!

For under $50 for this DIY Open Kitchen Shelves project, we now have a lot more kitchen storage and it was custom made to our dimensions and taste.