Industrial Wall Shelf Tutorial

Hey everyone!

I finally decided to do a tutorial on my industrial wall shelf I built (mostly) by myself, ’cause it’s that easy! We also built an entertainment center which I’ll do a tutorial on later, I need the hubby’s help for that one since it used a lot more tools. For this shelf all you need is some screws, a screwdriver and a level. Sources are linked at the bottom for the pipe and other accessories. I had stain laying around my house for the wood, but you can stain/paint, do whatever you want with that.

Here’s the finished product so you can see it before I give you all the details on how I built this lovely industrial shelf for my bare kitchen wall.

It required (6) 12″ pipes, (8) 8″ pipes, (8) flanges, (4) elbows, and (4) tees. I also decided to buy one big 1x6x10 foot board and cut it into sections of 3 feet for each shelf and stained with a dark walnut. I didn’t secure these shelves but you can if you’re worried about them moving and stuff falling off.

The flanges are what bolt the shelf to the wall. Make sure these are secured into studs because galvanized metal pipes can get heavy.  You can also use the black iron pipes if you don’t like the galvanized look. I did each side at a time by using the 8″ pipes as the shelf supports and attaching those to the flanges and either the elbow if it was a top or bottom, and attached the 8″ pipes to the tees if it was going to be in the middle. I then used the 12″ pipe to attach all of these together. Because these are threaded, you need to pay attention to how many times you twist each one because if they are not the same on each side, your shelf will not be level. Once it’s hung on the wall, just add your shelves and you’re all done! The great thing about the way this is designed is you can make the shelves as long as you want! If they’re so long they’re bowing in the middle, you may want to think about adding a third metal support.

This was in NO way a cheap project. Floor flanges are out of this world EXPENSIVE! It added up to be $157.07 but since we had an entertainment center like this, I wanted a kitchen shelf to match. Everyone that visits comments on it so it was so worth the money!

Be on the lookout! I’m also going to do a before and after of our kitchen table. This was my FIRST chalk paint project and is the reason I am obsessed with chalk paint and paint everything in it.

Sources:

3/4″ x 12″ Pipe x6 @$5.57 ea.

3/4″ x 8″ Pipe x8 @$4.19 ea.

Floor Flange x8 @$7.87 ea.

Elbow x4 @$2.37 ea.

Tee x4 @$2.92 ea.

1x6x10 Wood Board @$6.25 ea.