The entry closet near our front door was due for an update. It only had a wire rack for the upper shelf with hangers for coats. Our shoes sat on the floor and another wire rack thingy.

The picture below is without the bifold door after it was cleaned out

Removal

If anyone has ever removed these wire racks, you know that the fasteners used can leave huge holes in your drywall. After doing this 4 or 5 times, I have a good rule to follow. REMOVE THE NAIL/SCREW THINGY, THEN REMOVE THE ANCHOR. During our first closet reno, I did not do this and it left some huge holes in the drywall. I used a pair of vise grips on the head of the nail/screw then pull and twist. Once the nail is out, remove the anchor. After everything was removed I patched the holes, sanded, then put a skim coat, and sanded again. After prep, we put two coats of primer and one coat of semi gloss white.

Materials and Prep

The main material for the closet will be white melamine. It is ~13/16 thick, inexpensive, and pretty durable. The shelf supports will be made from poplar. I had some 10/4 stock left over, but on a previous closet, I laminated two 4/4 pieces together and that worked well also. The entire project took one sheet of melamine. I actually ran out of melamine when I got to the shoe caddy and needed to use some 3/4 plywood scrap. I think if I planned out the cuts better (at Home Depot), I may have been able to make it work.

The shoe caddy is 14 inches deep, 25 inches tall, and about 48″ wide. The upper shelf is 13 inched deep and it cut to fit against the drywall. The various pieces are the following.

The plan was mostly in my head, but this is how it will work. For the shelf there will be a back that gets a french cleat. it will hang on the wall. The shelf supports will be screwed into the back and then the top will simply sit on top of the back and shelf supports. The back is split into two pieces due to the angle in my wall. I didn’t want any visible fasteners, so this is the route I went. The shoe caddy is real simple with 4 legs and then internal spacers to prevent sag. Here are the various pieces.

• Extra Piece on Top
• Right Hand Back
• Shelf Top
• Back
• 3 Horizontal Shoe Caddy Pieces
• Plywood Shoe Caddy Vertical Pieces/Legs
• French Cleats for Wall and For Back Pieces

Supports and Edge Banding

The shelf supports started as smaller boards that I milled and glued together to make some small thick panels. For some reason, I made 4, but only needed three. Subconsciously, i must have figured i would screw one up.

After the support blanks came out of the clamps I scraped off the glue and flattened them with a jack plane. I used it across the grain and then 45 degrees each way. After that is was ready to head through the planer.

Once I ran both sides through the planer, I cut the pieces to final dimensions, rip to 8″, crosscut to 10″ long. Then I could lay out the shape of the supports. The only thing I kept in mind was the need for adequate material to screw into, which was about 2 inches. Since the shelf supports would be attached to rear board. It will make more sense in a bit, trust me. I went with a very simple L-shape and some curves using a plastic cup as a guide.

After layout, I moved onto the bandsaw and cut the shape out. Then it was time to spend a bunch of time at the spindle/belt sander and get the lines looking good. After that I added a heavy roundover on the router table. VOILA

Somewhere along this similar time, I edge banded the visible edges on all the pieces of melamine and plywood with white edge banding. This process always takes much longer than i expect it to.

Painting and Lighting

All of the plywood pieces for the shoe caddy and the shelf supports needed paint. One coat of primer and two top coats of semi gloss white.

Our closet currently has a fluorescent light with a pull string. It is hardwired to 120v and had no switch. The light sucked and was pretty yellow. I scratched my head for a bit to figure out what to replace it with and then stumbled upon this gem on Amazon. It is a 120v LED light with a motion detector. I was somewhat skeptical about the motion detecting ability since we have such a large “wall” above the bifold door up to the ceiling. The light works excellent, smart design, it is well made, and is super bright. Everyone once in a while, I get surprised in a good way.

Assembly of Shelf

Once the paint was dry it was time to assemble the shelf. I started in the closet by hanging the french cleats on the wall. I had to account for the height of the cleat itself when doing this. My intention was that the shelf would be at 68″ off the ground, but the cleat that will be attached to the shelf is ~3 tall, so I had to mount the cleat lower. The cleat ended up around 64″ from the ground. I was able to hit studs on the back cleat, but the RH cleat hit studs in the corner, but needed drywall anchors in the center of the wall.

Once the cleats were on the wall, I could mount them onto the back pieces and get a test fit to make sure the two pieces aligned in the corner and were at the correct height. Well, I forgot to account for the thickness of the shelf, so it ended up 3/4″ taller than I wanted. Luckily our storage bins still fit up there.

After taking the backs off the wall, I took them back to the garage and mounted the shelf supports and the “wall spacers”. I am not sure what you call the lower pieces of plywood that keep the piece from twisting about the french cleat. In the below picture you can see how I mounted the shelf supports too. I drilled and screwed #10X3″ screws into them

Time to Hang it Up

The next step was to cut the top and set it into place. Before the project started I actually made a template out of 1/4″ plywood to help with the angles. No corner is actually 90. I started with small strips of 1/4 and a hand clamp. Then, I traced that onto the 1/4 plywood. Then I cut the 1/4 plywood and confirmed the fitment. Finally I could trace the angles onto the melamine board and cut that to size with confidence. The template was not full length, but that was okay since I had a good measurement from corner to corner.

Even after using the template my angles were off a bit. Not bad, just needed a light trim. Since my template didn’t span the full length of the wall it was aligning with some low spots. After, I was happy with the fit I set the shelf in place and drilled/screwed some trim head screws to keep it secure.

Shoe Shelf or Shoe Caddy

The shoe caddy started by cutting three shelf pieces to the same size and angle to match my wall.

To make assembly easier and to keep everything aligned I decided to cut dadoes in the four leg pieces. The horizontal shelves will fit in them and then I will secure them with screws.

I must have gotten excited and forgot to take any pictures during the process, but I cut the dadoes in each of the four legs and then cut the spacers to match the space in between the dadoes. Basically using the legs as templates.

The trickiest part about the construction was actually the spacers in the center of the shelf. I had to attach them first since I wouldn’t have enough space for the drill. So I did a bunch of layout lines and drill holes, then made sure I countersunk the correct side. It took some time, but I got it done. The shoe caddy openings are 5″, 7 1/4″ 10 1/2″.