How to Make a Pipe and Wood Bookshelf

6 Materials
$120
4 Hours
Easy

Steph wanted a hanging bookshelf for her living room. She searched Pinterest and found one that would work perfectly with her decor. This metal pipe and wood shelf is the perfect place for to display books or art.


Take a look at how it came together.

Please take a few minutes to watch the video as it covers the process more throughly than the tutorial.

The shelving unit uses industrial materials like metal pipe, standard 2x6 boards and these clamps. You'll find out what we did with these later in the post!

Here are all the parts and pieces we used. The exact materials we used can be found here.

It is important to note that working with metal pipe is dirty work! I don't know what is on these pipes, but it must be cleaned off with mineral spirits. Be sure to take the time to throughly clean each piece. Allow everything to dry.


After cleaning, I applied wax, let it dry, and then buffed it. This helps to protect the pipe from rusting.


That's a puppy pad I'm working on by the way. It keeps the tabletop clean and it absorbs any spilled mineral spirits. Note: I leave this outside to let the mineral spirits evaporate before I toss it in the trash.

While I was cleaning up the pipes, Steph cut the 2x6 boards into three 35 inch pieces. The boards were sanded and distressed to look old. We applied pre-stain and then stained the boards. We finished them with a matte poly for durability.

Time to assemble the now clean and waxed pipes. It was like putting together a puzzle!

Holes were drilled into the ends of the shelving boards. This is where the pipes will come up through. We are using a spade bit.

This was the test fit before we stained the shelves. In the final shelf placement on the wall, you'll notice we reversed the direction.

Once finished, we took it took Steph's house to install. This was a little tricky with just two people so we enlisted my husband to come over and give us a hand.

Here it is all finished and with our mistakes painted over! Steph added four battery powered remote control lights. These are a one-time buy from Costco but these style lights are available many places.

Finished and styled with Steph's new book! Yes, we built this as a way to display her books!

Oh, and those clamps from the first picture, we used them as bookends! We simply turned them upside down and screwed them into place. There are four of those flanges (round things) that hold the bookshelf to the wall. It is attached with screws and wall anchors.

Steph has spend the last two years writing her life story. It's a bit of a hard story to read, but it is actually a story of hope. It is available to purchase from her website: https://www.stephaniekostopoulos.com/

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  • Jennifer Palermo Jennifer Palermo on Jun 30, 2019

    It is so pretty !! Very industrial look! Could be used for both boys and girls room. Thanks for the tip on how to clean those pipes too.

    I am so doing this!

    thanks for sharing.

  • Kathy Davis Kathy Davis on Sep 26, 2019

    Great looking shelves. FYI: I pre-ordered your book on Amazon. 😎 looking forward to it’s release.


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