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Craft Room Organization: PVC and Wire Shelf Paint Storage

by 67 Comments

Craft paint bottles. Everywhere.  That was the state of my craft room before my dad and I worked together to build a set of handy PVC and wire shelf paint storage units to house all my paint.  The base of these units comes from inexpensive storage shelves that are popular in college dorm rooms!

DIY Hanging Paint Storage

I am so excited to share this tutorial with you today because I think it will make a big difference in your craft room organization. From some inexpensive materials, you can build hanging paint storage to both organize and display your craft paint!
 

PVC and Wire Shelf Paint Storage

 

Craft Room Organization: PVC and Wire Shelf Paint Storage
Are you familiar with these wire shelves?  My parents bought me a few these sets for cheap storage in my college dorm room and they have been workhorses ever since.  You can occasionally find them at thrift stores or garage sales, or you can buy them online or from Walmart or Target.  These wire shelves are the most important part of these hanging paint racks.  You will need two wire shelves for each rack.  All the other materials can be bought cheaply at the hardware store.

craft paint storage racks

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The magic of these wire shelves is that the openings are just the right size to neatly hold bottles of craft paint!
 
Craft Room Organization: PVC and Wire Shelf Paint Storage
 
I found inspiration for this project from this pin on Pinterest.  The pin took me to a Cricut.com forum which just had this picture and this explanation:  “She used two shelves from one of those wire shelving units and zip tied empty thread spools in all four corners and the middle.”  Unfortunately, that forum page no longer exists, so the picture only lives on Pinterest now. I showed the idea to my dad, and he had some ideas for recreating the basic design with a few tweaks to make it more sturdy and easy to hang.
 
To make DIY Hanging Craft Paint Storage, you will need:
wire shelving (2 per rack)
3/4” diameter PVC pipe (4 segments per rack)
PVC pipe caps (8 per rack)
screws, washers, mollies and nails
drill
hacksaw
hammer
 

Constructing the Paint Racks

pvc materials
 
Instead of using spools of thread and zip ties, my dad devised a way to use PVC pipe and caps to create both the proper spacing and to securely hang the shelves.  You will need to use a hack saw to cut 3” sections of your PVC pipe.  One inch from the end of each piece, use your hack saw to cut 1/4” wide notches halfway into the pipe.  Do this for each of your sections of pipe; you will need four for each rack.

pvc spacers

Check to make sure your wire shelves fit in the notches you created.  The PVC pipe will keep the wire shelves in place, while the pipe caps keep the rack properly spaced away from the wall.

pvc cap washer and screw

The section of PVC pipe at the top of each rack supports the most weight, so you will need to screw this piece into the wall.  First, decide where you will hang your rack. Then drill a hole in the wall where the top corner will be, and insert a molly.

Next, drill a hole in the center of one PVC cap.  Insert a washer and screw.

screw into wall

Using your drill, screw the PVC onto the wall, into your molly.  This will make sure your rack is secure.
 
placing the racks
 
Insert the segment of PVC pipe into the cap you just screwed into the wall.  Hang two wire racks from the notches, and add another cap to the front of the segment of pipe.  Mark the spots on the wall where the other three corners meet the wall.

pvc and wire shelf paint storage

The other three pipe sections should be mounted on the wall in the same way as the top section but can be nailed into the wall instead of screwed. 

pvc spacers in action

The pipe sections should all be placed INSIDE the wire shelf corners, with the notches facing OUT.

paint rack side view

This picture shows that the rack is not only very securely hung, but that the pipes provided an inch of clearance from the wall, and an inch of space between the racks.  This makes sure there is enough room for the paint bottles to sit in each opening without falling out.

craft paint storage

Second verse, same as the first.

Organizing Your Craft Paint

DIY wire and pvc paint storage racks

Each rack holds a ton of craft paint without any signs of stress to the rack or the wall.  My Martha paints are very happy in their new home. I love that it is so easy for me to see which colors I have so I can quickly grab what I need.

fabric and acrylic paints

My paint bottles that have smaller caps than bodies (aka anything other than the Martha paints) need to be placed bottom first into the rack.  If you put them in cap first, they will angle down and possibly fall out of the rack.

pvc and wire shelf craft paint storage

The racks hold 2 oz. craft paints, 1 oz. fabric paints, and glass and screen printing paints.  I love that I don’t have to go digging through a box to find what I need any more!

DIY craft paint storage

Does your hoard of craft paint need some organization?  I think this is an elegant and practical solution to the problem!
 
hanging paint storage also works for
 
UPDATE!!!  After questions and suggestions from readers, I did a few experiments and discovered that this same system also holds nail polish, tubes of glitter, and many (but not all) types of thread.  For more specifics, visit THIS POST.
 

If you are looking for more craft storage ideas, you will like these posts:

Craft Room Organization: PVC and Wire Shelf Paint Storage
 
 
Craft Room Organization: PVC and Wire Shelf Paint Storage
 

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Comments

    • I Love this so much that I am adding this to my craft room HOWEVER I am have a horrible time finding the 3/4″ caps that are flat and not rounded …Can you tell me where you got yours ……I have gone to 5 different places and nothing flat.

      Reply

      • I am pretty sure we got it all at Home Depot, but it’s been a few years. Hope you can find some soon!

        Reply

      • I had the same problem but found Genova Products pipe caps on Amazon:
        You may be able to find them locally now that you have a name.

        Reply

  5. I have never posted to a pin before but I just had to thank you for posting this. It is exactly what I’ve been looking for and would have paid for if I had found it!

    Reply

  7. My kids call me a craft boarder!!! To be completely honest,I guess I am because I am into everything to do with crafting. Your idea is a dream come true for me since I have bottles of paint in every nook and cranny and very little space and waste time searching for the colors I need…THANK YOU !!!!! Love this idea!!!

    Reply

    • well for matchbox you might have to turn it so it flat , and you might have to change the spacing a little . Assuming they are out of the box. forgot how big matchbox cars are, the squars are 1 3/4 inchs big

      Reply

  9. This looked like such a cool project but I could not get it to work at all. I had such a hard time getting the PVC pipe to stay in the cap. The moment I put one grate up the pvc pipe just slid right out of the cap that was screwed into the wall. Any help would be great cause I tried so many different things and even had three people hold it while we got it all up and once I got 3 or 4 bottles of paint in it all collapsed.

    Reply

    • Oh no! My suggestion would be to size down the cap or size up the PVC pipe that you use. They should fit together very snugly, so much so that you may need to pound them together. I hope this helps!

      Reply

  10. This is simply brilliant and I am going to make several. I have more wall space than drawer space so this is perfect for me. Thanks so much and glad I found this PIN.

    Reply

  12. This is a great idea! I attempted to use cake cooling racks to store my Stampin Up markers, but I didn’t know how to secure the corners, I plan to try this for that purpose too!

    Reply

  13. I love how you did all your stuff in your sewing room. Now since it is time and I now have just moved to my new home….Iam ready to redue what I have in a different space. I really love the paint holder and believe it or not I have the same kind of shelf so Im all over that! Your dad is the best LOL (giggle- giggle) 🙂

    Again thank you for your inspiration and ideas. Very appreciated

    Cindy

    Reply

    • I haven\’t tried using it for markers, so I can\’t tell you definitely that it will but I suspect that it does. You could try modifying the distance between the shelf panels by making the lengths of PVC slightly longer. That would probably better for holding markers. Hope that helps!

      Reply

  17. Hi Tracie. It’s just a modular wire rack storage cube system. I’ve seen them at Target and WalMart, but I bought mine from Amazon.

    Hope this helps! It was a game changer for me, as I had paints in every room and could never find what I needed quickly. I’ll tell you that I use PVC for a lot of things, and a $10 PVC cutter is like pure gold! Much easier than a hacksaw.

    Reply

  19. How much does it weigh with paint in it? I’m renting and can’t put holes in the wall and am wondering if it will hold with a command strip on each corner.

    Reply

    • Command Strips will NOT be strong enough to hold it. We hammered mollies into the wall and then mounted the racks into the wall with screws. If you aren’t allowed to drill into your walls, this might not work for you.

      Reply

    • I live in a apartment as well and like you I can’t put anything up on walls. So what I did was I anchored the grids to a piece of plywood, then attached rings to the back on each corner. I used over the door hooks to hang the rack on. Hope this helps.

      Reply

  20. Hi I love your idea here and really want to make one for my daughter. everything I am reading about those panels is that the squares are 1″ squares and that is not big enough for folkart 2 oz paint bottles. Were you able to put folkart paints into these panels?
    Thank you – I don’t want to order these and then have to return them

    Reply

    • I just went and checked mine, and the openings are just shy of 1.5″ square, and they fit FolkArt (and Plaid) paints perfectly. Unless the company has changed the grid size on these racks, the paints should fit.

      Reply

  21. I love this idea because I use these same paint bottles & u can easily see the colours u have & it looks great on the wall & saves space when u live in an apartment. I will definitely try this idea!!

    Reply

  22. I put a back on the wire frame by screwing the end caps into wood or plactic boards so I could hang them on the wall and and then hung the boards on the wall similar to hanging a white board. This way I can take them down and go to where I am working. This also keeps the paint from the bottles from getting on the walls.

    Reply

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