Toy Car Shelf (Made From 2" X 4"s)

My son has a large number of toy cars. Matchboxes, Hot Wheels, cheap plastic ones, and metal die cast construction toys. He loves them, too. However, like most kids he leaves them everywhere. His mother and I usually just dump them in a bucket and then he dumps them all out to find one in particular…. Thus the cycle continues.

I decided to fix this. Or at least attempt to.

I measured several of his cars’ width to determine a good depth for a shelf. Once I had that, I found an empty section of wall in his room and measured the space.

I didn’t want a shelf that was too low to the ground, as I wanted to discourage him climbing on it. Additionally, there is a plug on this particular section.

I will say that I'm not providing super specific dimensions for this project. I realize everyone's size will vary.

Once I decided on a modified floating style shelf/rack, I gathered my materials. I used six 2” x 4”’s. I ripped them lengthwise on my table saw in order to make them to allow for the correct shelf depth.

I sanded any excessively rough spots. I used a combined stain and polyurethane for the finish. Also, please note the saw cut marks on the front of each shelf. I left them there to give it a more rustic appearance. However, they could be sanded smooth for a more “finished” appearance.

I used a pocket hole jig to connect the top and bottom shelf rail. The middle 3 were installed with glue and screws from the outside.

I drilled 9 evenly spaced holes along the front of each shelf. These serve two purposes;

1. Decoration (I think it kind of looks like a Tinker Toy set)

2. This provides a way to conceal the mounting screws on the front.

You have to forgive me, theses were taken after I had already mounted it because I neglected to take a lot of pictures when I was making it.

Because this is going into my son’s room and I know at some point he will climb it, I tried to mount it using screws into the wall studs. Where they did not line up, I used heavy duty anchors.

When it was mounted and ready, he helped me place the cars on the shelves. After he ran them back and forth like it was a road of course……

Other ideas; If you chose to do this in your own place, you could possible paint the top of each shelf grey with a center line (road style)

You could place it higher up and install a sheet of plexi-glass over the front (display case style) and taunt your children with all of those toys they can’t play with.

Make one or two of the shelves slightly ramped so that they could be played on.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with it. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask.

Thanks for reading!