We moved into our forever home recently, and my wife has been organizing her closet. She needed a place to put her nail polish and asked me if I could replicate something she saw on Pinterest. The classic example of “I can make that better and cheaper” than the online purchase option, and this time it worked out exactly like that. I was able to use some scrap red oak lumber I had in the shop, designed the shelf to hold more nail polish than the ones online made out of 1x3s, and make it for essentially nothing.

The basic construction of this nail polish holder is just a ladder, a small ladder with small gaps between rungs. I cut down the red oak to 4 inches wide, and then cut everything to length and then connected them with screws which I will hide with spackle and paint. The size allows for three nail polish bottles to be stacked on the shelves, creating a huge amount of storage in a pretty small space. This was also sized to fit behind the closet door, utilizing space that would normally go wasted. I added a vertical stretcher at the top of the unit to allow me to screw the unit into the studs, creating a rock-solid installation.

Our home has white painted trim and cabinets, So I primed and painted the nail polish holder to match. I used Zinsser water-based primer for the first coats, and then covered it with semi-gloss spray paint from Rustoleum for a super smooth final topcoat. With the winter set in here in Indiana, I had to paint in the basement, which isn’t the best option, but it allowed the paint to dry evenly compared to trying to do it in the cold garage shop.

Installation was easy. I found the studs on the wall with a stud finder, counter sunk holes in the upper vertical stretcher to allow for screws, and attached it to the wall. I’m confident that the installation will hold the weight of the nail polish bottles once in place.