Scavenger Chic

Bathroom Makeover, Cover your Ugly Wire Shelf

• By Joan
• January 11, 2023
• 9 Comments

Bathroom Makeover, Cover your Ugly Wire Shelf

Welcome back!  I hope everyone had a relaxing, joyful holiday season filled with good food, good friends, good times and family…and not necessarily in that order.

We just finished up the last of our holiday get togethers with family this past weekend and the following day I packed up all the decorations and put them back into storage until next year.

It’s time to begin a New Year with new projects and new inspirations and I’m starting out with this bathroom makeover.  This is my own basement bathroom that has not had a makeover for the past 30 years.

I probably would have put off this makeover for at least another 6 months if hubby hadn’t ripped the towel bar off the wall taking parts of the drywall with it.   The paint that was used for this bathroom had long ago dried up, so the entire bathroom would need a new paint job.  FYI, I did accuse hubby of tearing down the towel bar on purpose.  😉 hmmmm.

I’m starting with the closet in the bathroom.  There is a rough-in drain for a future shower in the floor but we have never felt the need to have that basement shower so we made the area into a storage closet, linen closet.

The closet was painted the same color as the rest of the bathroom so it would also have to be painted.

But while I’m at it, those ugly wire shelves have got to go.  Thirty years ago, they were very in style allowing your clothes to “breathe”, easy to install, blah, blah blah.  Now I just find them ugly.  They leave wire marks on fabric and things tend to fall thru the holes.

I wish that I could say that covering up those wire shelves was all my idea, it wasn’t.  I was inspired by countless blog posts, you tube videos, pinterest pins…you get the idea.  I particularly liked, Within the Grove’s floating shelves and Abby organizes, how to hide wire shelving.  It would appear that I’m not the only one with wire shelf issues.

From the thrift store I purchased 3 black wire baskets.  I was there the right day as all three of these baskets were half price. The larger one was $3.50, the two smaller ones were $2.00 each.

For the shelves I took a 4×8′ piece of 1/2″ sanded plywood and had the hardware store cut it down into 3, 8 foot 16″ strips.  Not only do I not have to wrestle with a 4×8 foot piece of wood but the smaller strips will actually fit into my car.   

You can use 1/4″ plywood but if you go as thick as 1 inch you might as well get rid of the wire shelves all together.  I liked the 1/2 inch as it was easier to attach the front edging trim.

Speaking of front edging trim, I’m using solid oak hardwood tongue and groove flooring from my local architectural salvage yard’s dump pile.  If you can, recycling and reusing is always preferable and you can’t beat free.

For the oak flooring, I used my table saw to cut off both the tongue and groove and sanded the edges and face well.

I attached the edging to the shelf with wood glue and finish nails.

Just trying my new shelf on for size.

One additional note… the 4×8′ sheet of plywood was only large enough for 3 shelves though I needed 4.  I did have one piece of scrap wood that was just large enough to stand in for my 4th shelf.  The back of this 4th shelf had a couple of oddly placed grooves where it had probably been the backing for another set of shelves but it was perfect for the bottom shelf where no one will ever notice the bottom of that shelf or the grooves.

I finished the shelves in a rich antique walnut stain and polyurethane combination from Varathane using two coats on the top and edging and 1 coat on the bottom of the shelves.  Use a fine steel wool between the first and second coats to smooth out any  lumps and bumps and clean with a lint free cloth.

The new paint color for the bathroom was going to be a dark gray and along with the antique walnut stained shelves everything was going to be dark.  The existing white wire shelves would have stood out  in such a dark closet and not in a “look how cute I am” way. 

I ended up taking the shelves outside and spraying them with a coat of  satin black spray paint.  I only spray painted the undersides of the shelves since the tops would be covered with the new wood shelf covers.

When painting the closet, instead of taking out all of the clips that held the wire shelves in place, I opted for leaving them in place and using a paint brush to  paint around and over the clips while I was doing the edging for the wall paint.

The few places that were missed when spray painting the wire shelves were easily touched up with black paint once the shelves were reinstalled.

The wood shelves look fantastic when placed over the existing ugly wire shelves.  And better yet, the black painted wire shelves are not even noticeable , they just blend in with the antique walnut.

The thrift store wire basket makes even the toilet paper look good.

The black and white rope basket was part of a gift basket we received for Christmas, it holds some of the smaller shampoos, hand lotion, soap and deodorants.

Happy New Year to all and I hope you come back next week for more bathroom inspiration.  Until then, stay inspired.

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