DIY Coffee Mug Shelf

I’d seen this cute coffee mug shelf on A Beautiful Mess and I’d pinned it as a “to do” on my Build It Pinterest board.

But I needed a variation of it – I didn’t want 9 coffee cup nooks, I wanted 6 – but ones that were big enough to hold my Rae Dunn mugs. For those of you that don’t follow a lot of blogs – these mugs are one of the blogging world’s “must haves”. They’re large, whimsical, dishwasher and microwave safe and only about $4 at HomeGoods/HomeSense. I just bought a new coffee machine after reading reviews on websites like https://coffee-works.com/ and I wanted to create a shelf to display my precious coffee mugs!

I hacked away at SketchUp Make (a free app for creating building and layout plans) and came up with a variation that I liked.

The great thing about SketchUp is that you can build anything ‘virtually’ with a bit of practice. The downside is that even minute fluctuations in board lengths, widths or depths in the real world throw your building plans off slightly…. so I thought I’d better build my coffee mug shelf to make sure I wasn’t leading you too far astray.

This shelf is too tall to put on a kitchen counter underneath upper cabinets- it’s meant to hang on the wall. If you did want to make a coffee mug shelf that would fit, you’ll need to change up the angle of the roof so that it’s lower by about 2″.

I had leftover mdf in the garage, so I ripped it down to 4 1/2″ wide boards. If you plan on staining your coffee mug shelf / house shelf, you’ll probably want to work with 1 x 5″ boards.

DIY Coffee Mug Shelf / House Shelf

Cut list – all boards being 4 1/2″ wide and 3/4″ thick.

• 2 pieces at 11 3/4″ long (sides)
• 2 pieces at 18″ long (bottom and top)
• 1 piece at 16 1/2″ long (horizontal centre)
• 4 pieces at 5 1/2″ long (cup dividers)
• 2 pieces at 13 1/4″ long (roof)

You will need:

• mitre saw
• Rockwell VersaCut Saw
• 1 1/2″ wood screws
• 2″ wood screws
• wood glue
• 24-Inch Clamp (2)
• sandpaper
• drill and countersink drill bit
• protractor
• speed square
• wood filler
• primer (if painting)
• paint/stain
• hanging hooks

Start by building your box shape – pre-drill, glue and then countersink your screws from your 18″ bottom board up into your 11 3/4″ boards. (2 screws on either end)

The top board is NOT going to be screwed into place. Check for square, and then glue your top board to the sides and use clamps to hold it in place. This is important because we’ll be cutting an angle on the top board and you don’t want to destroy your saw by cutting through screws.

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Next you’ll want to insert your 16 1/2″ centre board. Measure down from the underside of the top board 5 1/2″ and up from the top side of the bottom board 5 1/2″ and mark on both sides.

Pre-drill screw holes through the sides, countersink them slightly so we can hide them with wood filler later, add glue to the ends of your 16 1/2″ board and insert into place. Check for square before screwing together through the sides.

Now add your cup dividers – the 5 1/2″ pieces – every 5″. Pre-drill, countersink, glue and screw into place from the top board or the bottom. You can see the wood filler in the above image will show you where I mean.

Next up is the tricky part and is going to depend on where you plan to put your DIY coffee mug shelf / house shelf; attaching the roof.

I decided that I wanted my roof to have consistent spacing with my shelf heights, so I figured my peak to be 5 1/2″ above the top board of the shelf itself. This meant that the angle of my peak was 120 degrees at the point and 35 degrees where it meets the top board of the shelf.

Yup – total pain in the ass to figure out.

Once I had the initial angle for the peak decided (and put together) I was able to just lie my roof on top of my shelf where I wanted it to overlap and trace a line to give me the angle to cut the shelf at.

You won’t be able to make this cut with a 10″ mitre saw, so if yours is the same size as mine, you’ll want to use a Rockwell VersaCut Circular Saw or circular saw if you’re brave. Do your best to get your angle accurate and straight, but also remember that sandpaper and wood filler were invented for a reason.

Predrill, countersink and then screw your roof boards down into the cut angles of the shelf itself. You’ll want to use 2″ wood screws here to make sure that it goes through the roof, through the top board AND down into the 11 3/4″ side board. (I forgot to countersink, so this is one of those “do as I say and not as I do” moments)

Fill in any screw-ups, gaps and screw heads with wood filler and let dry.

Sand thoroughly and then stain or prime it.

I used two coats of a gloss white interior latex on mine, but that’s only because I haven’t decided where it’s going to go yet. Black from the original tutorial is sharp, or if you are thinking of using this coffee mug shelf / house shelf in a kids room – go with a bright and fun colour and fill with their favourite stuffies.

The last step is to add your hanging hooks to the back of your DIY coffee mug shelf / house shelf, and then hang!

It’s whimiscal, fun and a piece of art really – especially with all of my “inspirational” mugs in it.

Alternatively, you could fill it with small succulents, or a combination of both. Maybe set it on a window sill and it would make a cute herb garden.

The only part of this project that I’m not thrilled with is the screws in the roof peak. A Beautiful Mess made theirs using just wood glue and perhaps I should have gone that way as well – but the OCD in me didn’t trust wood glue alone to hold everything together.

I’ll leave it up to you – it’s a small eyesore that probably only you will notice, but I thought I’d mention it.

My friend recently got a new coffee container that she saw on thefullmooncafe.com, it’s to keep her coffee fresher. She asked if it could fit on this shelf if she made one but unfortunately it won’t. If you want to keep containers and jars on the shelves then you will need to make the holes a few inches taller.

If only my girls were into stuffies, I’d totally build another one for each of their rooms.

HEY! This would make a great gift for someone’s nursery!

You could probably even keep your baby powder, vaseline, wipes and a few diapers in it and hang it by your changing table.

Now I want another house shelf AND a baby! lol

I’ve posted this DIY coffee mug shelf / house shelf well in advance of Mother’s Day, so you could whip one out and surprise Mom.

Total cost:

• leftover MDF from other projects = $0
• leftover paint from other projects = $0
• Time to build: ~ 1 hour
• Time to paint: ~ 1 hour (not including drying times between coats)

While these plans are completely free for you to use, they did take time to create, build, photograph and describe. If you enjoyed these plans, and would like to see more – please consider contributing money to help keep 100Things2Do.ca up and running.

Have a great one!

Linked to:

• Between Naps on the Porch
• Skip to my Lou

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