Make A DIY Picture Ledge & How To Style It

5 Materials
$20
1 Hour
Easy

Is it wrong to sprinkle adorable photos of your kids or gorgeous printables all around your house? If it is I don’t want to be right!


Family photos & beautiful prints really make a home feel cozy, the trick is to display them without it looking cluttered.

I really was a huge fan of the eclectic gallery walls with huge letters & all different frames, but since having Eli I find myself leaning more towards simple.


Let me show you how

Supplies:


Picture Shelf Supplies:

  • 1×4 Select Pine Board
  • 1×3 Select Pine Board
  • 1×2 Select Pine Board
  • Stain
  • Pre-Stain (optional)
  • 2″ Screws
  • Wood Glue
  • Small Finishing Nails (optional)


Shelf Size


For my shelves I wanted one longer one (6′) & one shorter (4′)

  1. First, pick out nice straight pieces of wood, I used select pine & really looked them over for imperfections. It takes 3 boards per shelf so for my two shelves I bought six boards.


2. Next, I measured my boards & made sure each set was the same length. I only had to cut a 1/4″ off of two of the boards to make them match.


Pre stain


3. Now that the boards are cut it’s time to apply the pre-stain to the wood. I don’t always use pre-stain when I am staining but this picture ledge is going to be a focal point for the room so I want it to be right!

After 1 coat of stain


4. After applying a layer of pre-stain you can immediately apply the regular stain. I went with Minwax Golden Pecan, after using it on our  DIY outdoor table I have become a fan!

Attaching Back & Ledge


After the stain dries you can start assembling! One shelf took me a total of 10 minutes to assemble, I told y’all fastest DIY ever!


5. Start with attaching the 1×3 middle piece to the 1×4 back piece. Use wood glue & clamps to hold the two pieces together.

Securing back & middle


6. From the back of the 1×4 piece, secure the two pieces together using 2″ wood screws.

Attaching front piece


7. Now that the middle & back pieces are attached it’s time to attach the 1×2 to the front. Use a layer of wood glue & clamp them together.

Extra security


The wood glue is probably enough to hold the front & middle piece together because there won’t be any weight on that piece, but I have a toddler so I also nailed in small finishing nails along the front.

Wood Filler


If you do use nails, Minwax makes a stainable wood filler. Apply it to the holes & then do a little touch-up stain along the front.

Attaching the shelves to the wall


This part took me the most time… hanging the frames. As a general rule any picture frame shelf or artwork should be hung at eye level. My first DIY picture ledge is 50″ from the ground & the smaller picture shelf in 17″ from the long one.


I attached the picture wall shelf with a few 2″ screws, making sure to hit studs. Don’t worry about the screws because the picture frames will hide those.

Ta-da


Not bad for a 1 hour DIY picture ledge project!


Check out our easy gallery wall & more DIY wood projects here!

Resources for this project:
See all materials
Any price and availability information displayed on [relevant Amazon Site(s), as applicable] at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.
Hometalk may collect a small share of sales from the links on this page.More info
Lia with Southern Yankee DIY
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
Go
Frequently asked questions
Have a question about this project?
  1 question
  • Susan Feaver Neufeld Susan Feaver Neufeld on Oct 12, 2020

    So, for eye level - whose eye are we using? lol I'm 5 ft nothing and my son is 6'1" - big difference there lol

Comments
Join the conversation
Next