Guest Post: DIY Wine Glass Rack & Beverage Center

Today is exciting because it is the first time I am having a guest writer on my blog.  My sister and her husband just finished a wine glass rack/beverage center for their apartment in NYC.  They live in a small 2-bedroom 5th floor walk-up (as in no elevator - ugh) so they are very space conscious.  This project fit the bill of being both small space friendly and stylish.  So here's my sister with the nitty gritty on their project...

DIY Wine Glass Rack

Living in New York City, I’m always on the lookout for storage solutions, whether it’s a pretty container to store stuff that has to be visible or a smarter way of organizing the stuff itself.  About 2 years ago, I bought an end table that I re-appropriated as a small bar cart to relieve my overflowing kitchen cabinets of glassware and my small collection of liquor.  This worked well until my husband moved in with his collection of glassware and larger collection of liquor.  Pretty soon we were back to same problem only this time with an overcrowded tabletop in the corner of my living room plus overflowing kitchen cabinets.

Enter the Pottery Barn catalog, the source of decorating inspirations and aspirations.  Inspirations because it does have so many lovely things and aspirations because everything costs an arm and a leg.  However, it did have a really nice looking wine glass shelf- dark wood shelf with a cast iron rack for the glasses underneath.  It was a great solution but I didn’t want to pay $80 for it.   Unfortunately it never went on sale and when I finally had a discount code, the one I wanted was out of stock. 

At that point, I decided to just make the damn shelf myself and given what an easy project it turned out to be, I wish I had done it sooner.  Plus the whole thing cost just over $30.   We bought some pretty cast iron brackets at an antique store (about $8 each), got a salvaged piece of wood from my father’s basement (free), and ordered the under the counter wine glasses rack from Amazon ($15).  The wood happened to be leftover from an old bookcase so it was already stained.  We just cut it to fit and used a little stain I already had to finish the ends.  

Here you can see the hummingbird design in the brackets.

This project is essentially the same as putting up a regular shelf- it doesn’t get much more basic.  The most important thing is to accurately measure to make sure the rack and the brackets fit on the shelf bottom and that you have lined up the holes for the brackets correctly on the wall.  This is especially true if you go with antique brackets since the holes tend to irregular and the bracket itself didn’t lie flush to the wall or the shelf.   Obviously, if you use heavy brackets like cast iron, get some serious anchors for the wall.  The last thing you want is the shelf to fall out of the wall with all those glasses attached.

The rack before being attached to the shelf.

 I would also add the advice to get your glass rack and brackets before you buy or cut the wood for your shelf, especially if you order anything online.   I say this because the rack we ordered from Amazon did not have the same dimensions as the product descriptions on the website which meant that the shelf we had originally bought was not deep enough.  Even though the depth of the rack was only off by a 1/4^th of an inch, it was enough to make the shelf unusable.  There are some good solutions to this dilemma which include adding a piece of molding to the front or back of the shelf but we had bought a pre-finished shelf from Home Depot so those weren’t going to blend well.  Whatever shelf option you go with, just get your rack and brackets first and then you can either cut your wood to fit or get the right sized shelf. 

Free!!!

Beyond the measuring and the anchors, everything else is really a matter of aesthetics for the bracket style, finish of the wood, size of the rack, etc.  You could pretty easily paint the rack black to match the brackets, turn the brackets the other way, or add molding to the edges for a fancier look. 

Installing the assembled rack on the wall.

We’re really pleased with how it turned out and how much more storage it gave us.   An easy project that was done in one afternoon for less than half the cost of the store bought version!   

Attached to the wall - waiting for the glasses.

All decked out - looking great!

I think their beverage center turned out great.  I can't wait to see what else they come up with next.  Hopefully she'll write some more posts for me:)

~ Gold Shoe Girl ~

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