How to: Make a Rustic Shelving and Media Unit from Hardware Store Materials

You’ve no doubt familiar with that one aisle in the home center with the track shelving: the tracks and brackets that can be assembled in a variety of sizes. Which are great, except the finished product looks like a bunch of stuff from that one aisle in the home center with all the track shelving. 

Molly from Almost Makes Perfect figured out a cool way to update these easy-to-find affordable materials and give them a warm, rustic industrial look you’d actually be happy to have in your home.   Boom: 

Upgrade one: use black tracks and brackets instead of utility room white; and two: opt for lightweight solid fir or pine shelving that you can stain a rich, worn-in brown. 

Here’s a couple suggestions I’d make to avoid some of the issues seen in the full shot below. On shelves with particularly heavy or fragile items, such as the tv, use a double layer of shelving, but not glued up. One will absorb the weight of the tv, and one will serve as a substrate to prevent the wood from bowing or sagging. This would be better than a thicker shelf, which might eventually also sag with such soft wood. Two: for a finished look, go ahead and cut any extra track sticking out of the bottom or top, such as on the lowest level of the right side, next to that cool campaign dresser (which Molly also made). The track cuts easily with a bi-metal blade in a hacksaw, or an angle grinder if you have one. 

I love projects that turn such easy-to-find materials into something really special. Excellent job, Molly. Go check out the full process and do likewise!

DIY Shelving [Almost Makes Perfect]