Upcycled Doors – Wood Shelf Liners

Upcycled Doors – Wood Shelf Liners

Welcome back, today we’re upcycling some old hollow core doors I retrieved from a architectural salvage dump pile. With the peeling veneer, the salvage place I’m getting these from couldn’t sell them, but they are perfect for my shelf liners.

For this project the doors must absolutely be hollow as I’m just using the thin wood on the exterior of the doors.

If you’re wondering whether a door is hollow, just pick it up.  Solid doors are pretty weighty, while hollow doors are much easier to pick up and pack into the car.

I’m back in the pantry today.  I love ♥ the size of my pantry but I haven’t painted the shelves or walls in 20 years.  Frankly the project always seemed quite overwhelming…emptying the shelves, scrubbing, painting, restocking…I’d rather be at the beach.

Getting started is always the hardest part.

 Back to the doors…I’m looking to harvest the thin wood on both sides of the door.

These hollow doors are always held together by strips of wood running along the top, bottom and both sides.  By cutting off those strips, I’m left with the hollow part of the door and whatever is holding the sides together on the inside.

I ran the doors along the table saw  to get rid of all the sides.

This door was easy to dismantle once the ends  and sides were cut off.  Those wooden cross pieces needed to be knocked out to free the outer wood. Use a super long screwdriver or wide putty knife to pry the glued on pieces away from the wood you want to save.

The solid piece of wood still inside the door would be from the extra support around the doorknob.

I wish I could have seen the insides of the doors I was rescuing or I might have left this one behind.  That is one heck of a lot of glued on pieces that had to be scraped off.  This door definitely put up a fight.

Eventually all the door wood was salvaged and I was able to get 2 full size pieces from each door.  Cut each piece to your desired length and width. 

Once dismantled, take your sander to the door fronts and lightly sand to get rid of any bumps and  old flaky varnish.

This Minwax Polycrylic gives the new wood shelf liners a nice gloss so it doesn’t absorb any stains and is easy to clean.

For the shelf edging I’m using reclaimed oak hardwood flooring.   Cut the  tongue and groove parts off of the hardwood flooring until you just have strips of oak about an 1 1/4″ in width.

Sand the edges and remove the old varnish of the flooring.

Where the shelf edging meets in the corner I’ve mitered the edge with my chop saw.

The other end of the shelf edging was cut with a table top scroll saw (or you can use a jigsaw) to cut around the shelf supports.

Finish the edging with a stain and varnish or a combo product.

I left a full day for the wood shelf liner install  because I had to empty the entire pantry, clean  and paint.

It’s amazing how much junk I had stored in that pantry!  I did use my clean out the pantry opportunity to throw out a few items that had expired years ago and combine a few duplicate boxes, but most of my junk went right back into the pantry at the end of the day.

From a distance the shelves didn’t look too bad. 

Up close was another story.  Since I last painted 20 years ago, even with the use of shelf paper, these shelves have taken some abuse.

With all the preparation of the wood shelf liners ahead of time, the actual installation was probably the easiest part of the day.

Just lay the wood directly over the current shelves, no adhesive needed.  Just like shelf paper  they can be removed at any time with no mess.

The corner piece supports both shelves and was easily knocked out with a good blow from a hammer. 

Removing the corner support temporarily allows me to have a  wood shelf liner piece go the full length of the shelf with no weird cuts.  I replaced the white wood support with a piece that more closely coordinates with the shelves.

The little notch I carved out of the oak shelf edging rests nicely on my existing shelf supports.

The mitered edge of the shelf edging fits nicely into the corner where the 2 shelves meet.

If you have one or can borrow one, I suggest using a nail gun to attach the edge trim to the shelf  with 2 inch nails.  A nail gun makes the job so easy and countersinks the nails in just one step.

This top piece of edging is laying flat along the shelf yet you can still see the shelf sagging below.  While it was not really noticeable to the naked eye, each of the particle board shelves had slightly warped over the years.  

Pushing down the edging and pulling up on the shelf while nailing pulls the shelf back into alignment and helps the shelf to not sag in the future.

A brand new cleaned out pantry.  I kind of hate to load it up again. 🙄 

The pantry goes with my old, also reclaimed , vintage pantry door,

…and the cleaner shelf that sits behind the door ( in the same pantry) that I finished a couple months ago.

I had an early start on the pantry and here it is just about 6:00 and I’m almost finished.  

I must say that the hardest part of the entire project was dismantling a couple of those doors that did not want to be dismantled and just beginning the makeover day.  You can never finish a project you don’t start.

As always , stay inspired.