DIY PVC Wall Mounted Closet Shoe Rack

We had a problem at my house. We have a lot of shoes and I may or may not be guilty of being too lazy to put them back at the end of the day. This meant our closet had become a bit of a hazard. In order to get clothes out of the closet we had to hope to navigate the minefield of shoes all over the closet floor. We had about a 50% success rate and my wife wasn't having it anymore. Drastic measured where required!

To combat my own laziness I thought of this shoe rack. I had seen prettier and more crafty shoe racks done in a similar fashion online and thought it might be cool to to take the concept and mount it to the wall. The end result may have saved a marriage. (-;

I went out to the hardware store to find the largest PVC I could find. I ended up using drainage pipe instead because it was a lot cheaper and just as easy to work with.

2X: 10 foot long 6 inch in diameter drainage pipe

1X: Giant bottle of Gorilla Glue

6X: Clamps or locking pliers

6X: Metal L brackets with 2 pre-drilled holes on each side

12X: Nuts and bolts for attaching the shoe rack to the L brackets

12X: Wall mounting hardware (varies depending on type of wall)

1X: Hacksaw and/or Jig Saw for cutting

1: First you need to cut the PVC to a matching length. I cut mine at 12 inches each but you could probably get away with cutting them at 10 inches and needing less of it. To get a straight cut I cut a cereal box so that I had a long piece of thin cardboard with a straight edge on one side. Then I measured 12 inches and wrapped the piece of cardboard around the 12 inch line. When the two ends of the cardboard overlapped and where even I knew I had it "square" and ran my pen around it to give myself a good line.

2: Now that all my cutting lines had been drawn I used a hacksaw to put a small cut over each line. I didn't complete the cut. Instead I went back and used my jigsaw to complete the cut to give me a better chance of keeping a straight cut. This worked pretty well.

3: Now I used whatever sandpaper I had lying around to sand down any rough edges

4: Paint, I spent a lot of time painting the outside of the PVC. Here is the thing though, if this is going to be mounted in a closet then NO ONE will ever be able to see it from the side. I'd save the time and skip this step now that I know better.

5: Glue, glue and more Glue! I tried using PVC glue but because I used the softer drainage material it didn't work well. Then I tried using 5 minute epoxy, nope! Gorilla glue did the trick perfectly and now my 5 year old can literally hang form this thing. Just get the pipe damp with a cloth and then glue (not too much as it expands as it dries). Immediately clamp the glued pipe together at each end. Wait a few hours and its done!

6: I drilled holes into the pipe and used the bolts to secure the L brackets to the now together shoe rack. I used 6 in total, 2 on the top, 2 in the middle and 2 on the bottom. That worked great and this is now the sturdiest thing in my house.

7: Mount it. I held it up on the wall to see where it should be and marked with pen the spots that the mounting hardware should go to. Then drill a few holes, add the hardware and you should be done.

We did this a few months back and it is by far the longest we have ever had a clean closet. Its amazing what a difference having your shoes at eye level and off of the floor will do.

As a side benefit we had a bunch of extra pipe so drilled some holes, added some textured paint and ended up with some awesome new candle holders for some of those flame-less candles we had lying around.