If you work from home, chances are your home office is one of the most well-used spaces in your house – which is why it deserves to shine. For today’s Paint School lesson, we’re teaching you how to repurpose an old cabinet into colourful built-in wall shelves using paint. It’s a simple DIY project for a dopamine-happy workspace or any room in your home that will boost your productivity and mood all at once.
The best part? You don’t need any previous DIY experience to tackle this project. Just arm yourself with your favourite paint colours and a roller or paintbrush, and let’s get to work.
Materials Required:
- BEHR PREMIUM® Cabinet, Door & Trim Enamel Paint in Wasabi, Balboa, Pink Posies & Paper Heart
- BEHR PREMIUM® Spray Paint in Summer Sun, Kindling, Hopeful Dream & Desert Coral
- BEHR® Kitchen, Bath & Trim Stain-Blocking Primer & Sealer
- 1 ½ inch paint brush
- Mini foam roller
- Drop cloth
- Painter’s tray
- Sandpaper in different grits (from 120 to 400)
- Cloth
- 16 L-brackets
- 4 pine boards, cut to size for your cabinet or walls
- Drill
Step 1: Measure the Wall Space for Your DIY Shelves
First, start by measuring the cabinet or wall space where you plan to install your new colourful shelves. For our cabinet, we’re creating four shelves by cutting four pine boards to 15 x 47 inches with a jig saw. You can also have these cut at your local hardware store.
Step 2: Prep Your Built-In Shelves
Once your shelves have been cut to size, sand the surface of each shelf with 120-grit sandpaper and remove all wood dust with a clean cloth.
Using a high-quality nap roller cover or nylon polyester brush, add one coat of BEHR® Kitchen, Bath & Trim Stain-Blocking Primer & Sealer to each shelf. Make sure to let the shelves dry for one hour before moving onto painting.
Step 3: Add Some Colour to Your Home Office Setup
Now that your shelves are properly prepared, it’s time to paint! We’re using BEHR PREMIUM® Cabinet, Door & Trim Enamel Paint which dries to a hard durable surface, perfect for this project. To make a truly colourful statement for our cabinet, we opted for a different pastel-inspired hue for each of our four shelves: Pink Posies, Paper Heart, Wasabi and Balboa.
Apply a thin coat of paint using a high-quality nap roller cover or synthetic brush. Make sure to follow the direction of the wood grain and cover all sides of the wood for a smooth, even finish.
Once the first coat of paint is complete, let each shelf dry for two hours. Then, sand lightly with 320-400 grit sandpaper and apply a second coat for optimal durability.
Step 4: Install and Style Your DIY Shelving Unit
Using L brackets, drill a one-inch hole into the cabinet or wall where the shelving will be installed, and plug in four brackets to hold each colourful DIY shelf.
To style this new home office space, we thrifted some accessories that we refreshed using BEHR PREMIUM® Spray Paint for an added splash of colour. It has excellent adhesion to multiple surfaces including wood, metal, plastic and more, making it an easy way to add some finishing touches to your room makeover.
Are you ready to introduce happy hues into your very own home office? We can’t wait to see what you create!
