Sport Gear Storage in a Small Space | Pretty Handy Girl

My home is protected by ninjas! Well, actually Tae Kwon Do athletes, but they are ninjas in training. So, don’t even think about breaking into our house or they will open up a can of whoop ass on you! 😉

Unfortunately, where my boys are plentiful in kicking and punching skills they lack in the picking up your stuff department. Which means that the bottom of the stairway to our bonus room is usually the dumping ground for their gear bags, clothing and gear.

Sport Gear Storage Shelves in a Small Space | Pretty Handy Girl

I knew I could “up” the amount of storage we had in this small unused space by going vertical. I designed and created Sports Gear Storage Shelves in the small space at the base of our bonus room stairs. Adding mesh siding gives the storage system a locker vibe and allowed for better air flow around stinky sports gear.

Sport Gear Storage Shelves in a Small Space | Pretty Handy Girl

Want to know how to build your own Sport Gear Storage Shelves? Hang out for a while and I’ll walk you through the step-by-step tutorial.

Materials:

Cut List:

  • 5 – 15″ x 24″ plywood (shelves)*
  • 5 – 1 x 3 x 15″ (shelf cleats)
  • 5 – 1 x 3 x 23″ (shelf cleats)
  • 2 – 1 x 3 x 88″ (sides of support frame)
  • 2 – 1 x 3 x 4.5″ (top & bottom of support frame)
  • 1 – 5.5″ x 84″ piece of wire mesh
  • Rip edge banding 1/4″ thickness from one 1 x 3″ board

* You should be able to get a sixth shelf cut from your plywood if you wish to use it for a base.

Instructions:

Before beginning to build, sketch out your design with painter’s tape. Take note of the height of any baskets or gear bags you will store on the shelves. This should give you the ability to visualize the storage shelves and make any alterations to your design before you build. Once you are happy with the layout, write down your shelf heights.

Sport Gear Storage Shelves in a Small Space | Pretty Handy Girl

You may wish to clad the walls in wood planks like I did before you build the shelving. If you decide to add the planks, here’s the tutorial for planking your walls.

Sport Gear Storage Shelves in a Small Space | Pretty Handy Girl

Measure and mark the heights of your shelves.

Sport Gear Storage Shelves in a Small Space | Pretty Handy Girl

Using a level, draw a pencil line where the shelves will rest.

Sport Gear Storage Shelves in a Small Space | Pretty Handy Girl

Secure the 1×3″ cleats below the pencil line using 2 1/2″ wood screws into studs.

Sport Gear Storage Shelves in a Small Space | Pretty Handy Girl

Continue securing shelf cleats to the wall with screws into available studs.

Sport Gear Storage Shelves in a Small Space | Pretty Handy Girl

Paint or stain the cleats to match the wall color.

Sport Gear Storage Shelves in a Small Space | Pretty Handy Girl

Building Curved Shelves with Edge Banding: Read more

Today I want to welcome Emily from DecorChick! Isn’t she gorgeous! But, she’s not just attractive, she is brilliant! (And fun to hang with.)

decorechick picture

Why do I think she’s brilliant? Because she has one extra special, creative brain. Just look what she made out of a little lonely drawer!

drawer candle holder

I love her home and all the changes she’s made to it. Especially her staircase makeover! I’m jealous of her staircase because, I live in a two story home, and I spend A LOT of time going up and down the stairs. Every step I take on the stained carpet stairs with an ugly banister and spindles makes me long to live in Texas in Emily’s home. I have been wanting to give our staircase a makeover since we moved in. Sadly, I haven’t started it yet. But, I know when I do I will be more in love with my home because of it.

Emily has agreed to share her staircase moulding tutorial with you today. So, please give her a big welcoming hug.

Heeeeeeeeeeeres, Emily:

Hi everyone, I’m Emily from Decorchick. I’m so happy to be posting on Brittany’s blog today. I’ve always been a fan of Brittany and her blog, and I was fortunate and got to hang out with her at Blissdom and it was so much fun. Brittany is such a sweetheart, but I know you all know that already. 🙂

I finished a big project (with the help of my Dad) and transformed our staircase wall with lots of moulding. I couldn’t be happier with the results and I will be showing you the makeover today.

So, let’s take a look at the before photos.

staircase makeover before
staircase makeover

And now….the after!

staircase makeover after
staircase makeover after paneling

Ahhh, don’t you love wainscoting??

I was actually smart for once and painted the wall white before we added any boxes. I know, can you believe it? I actually followed my own advice. 🙂

staircase makeover painting

When you are trying to do wainscoting up a staircase, you are going to have odd angles and cuts. But this new little gadget my Dad introduced me to is so cool. You just set it on your angle, say for instance our staircase banister, and it tells you exactly what angle it’s sitting at.

staircase makeover tools
staircase makeover protractor

Pretty neat right? Oh, and those are my Dad’s hands. I don’t have man-hands and hairy wrists.

The angle of my staircase is 37 degrees, so the cuts were all made to compliment that.

For the moulding, I chose to use the foam stuff again. The pieces I bought were 7ft in length and cost $2.38 for each piece. I ended up buying 27 pieces. So that is $64.26 just for the moulding for the stair boxes.

First thing we did was cut all of the pieces for all 21 boxes.

staircase makeover supplies

Then we used this make-shift template so we could glue each piece together at the right angle, and on a flat surface.

staircase makeover angle cut

We glued 2 pieces at a time with hot glue, and let them cool.

Some pieces cooling…

staircase makeover glued pieces
staircase makeover resting supplies

And then we would glue a box together.

staircase makeover glued panels

And eventually got all of these.

staircase makeover finished panels

Then we put up the frames temporarily with double-sided tape to get the spacing correct, nailed them in with a nail gun, and added the chair rail. The rail is not an actual “chair rail” but is window casing trim. It is decorative like a chair rail and has a nice ledge to it.

staircase makeover panels installed
staircase makeover panel install

Then came a LOT of caulking and spackling of all of the boxes and chair rail, more painting, and then done! And please, if you need to cover nail holes, use spackle and not caulking. I already knew this but for some dumb reason I used caulk and ended up redoing it with spackle. Caulk does not sand well and it gets rubbery. With spackle, it sands down nicely and you can’t even see the holes. Just my little tip!

I’ll just show you all more after photos because I know that’s what you really care about. 🙂

staircase makeover finished
staircase makeover painted
staircase makeover decor
staircase makeover finished decor
staircase makeover panel closeup
staircase makeover finished diy project
staircase makeover project
staircase makeover diy

And here are a couple of night shots. P.S.- the sconces have flameless candles in them and they are on a timer, so they come on at the same time every day and stay on for 5 hours and turn off.

staircase makeover candles
staircase makeover candle decor
staircase makeover lighting
staircase makeover light decor
staircase makeover evening decor
staircase makeover

So what do you think? I think this is one of, if not, my favorite transformation so far. I think I always say that though. 🙂 This wall was always a challenge to decorate, so that’s why it’s been empty for 2 years now. I think having the wall more as an architectural feature was the way to go.

To see how the design of the staircase came about, you can read about that here. To see a more detailed how-to of the moulding boxes you can read that here.

Source list:

  • Starburst Mirror – Pier 1 for $69 (was on sale over half off! The original price was $149)
  • Candle Sconces – Hobby Lobby $30 each (with half off)
  • Flameless candles – Pier 1. I already had these candles but had to buy one more for about $14. Pier 1 flameless candles are my favorite because they glow from the bottom up, instead of just the top like a lot of others do.

Materials – $64.26 for moulding boxes, and approximately $20 for the chair rail.

Wall color – Baguette from Sherwin Williams — (But it’s soon changing to a different color)

I hope you enjoyed my staircase makeover, and thank you so much for having me Brittany!

Thanks Emily! I appreciate that you shared your tutorial with us. What do you guys think? Pretty fab, huh?! Well, you haven’t seen nothin’ yet.

Checkout her fabulous pantry! Seriously, I love her pantry (and her Dad who helped her build the custom carousels for her pantry. DecorChick Dad, can you adopt me please!!!)

See for yourself:

diy pantry makeover project
Pantry Makeover HERE.

I hope you will hop over to her blog and tell her I sent you. Enjoy your visit!

Stay tuned, we have a few more guest posters helping me with “Falling in Love with Your Home” February!