Upgrade Your Coffee Mug Storage With A Cool DIY That Keeps Them Tidy & Within Reach

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Your coffee mugs are essential, everyday items, so it's important to keep them within reach, but storing them in an organized manner can be quite challenging. If you put them out on your countertop, they'll reduce the amount of space you have for cooking and food prep. But in your cabinet, they limit your kitchen's storage capacity instead. Plus, locating a specific coffee cup can be quite the hassle if it's hidden in the back of your cupboard. To keep your mugs both organized and accessible, you can build a freestanding DIY display shelf that sits on your countertop and stores mugs vertically in individual slots. The open design of such a fixture will highlight the unique patterns and colors of your cups, so the finished product will be not just practical, but stunningly stylish as well.

Building a mug display shelf for your kitchen countertop is a relatively straightforward process. The project requires a handful of small brad nails, some contact cement, a can of wood stain, and some cuts of thin MDF wood. Cregugua Veneered MDF Sheets and Permatex Contact Cement are both relatively budget-friendly options that should work perfectly for this project. You'll essentially be using the boards to build a box with shelves inside it, and then adding a few dividers on each shelf to frame the mugs. Thanks to the low cost of the materials and the visual appeal of the completed piece, this DIY turns out to be one of the best budget-friendly ideas for organizing your kitchen.

The trickiest part of this project is measuring and cutting your MDF components. For a shelf that displays nine mugs in a three-by-three configuration, you'll need a board for the back of the fixture that's approximately 15 by 17.5 inches. You'll also need two 15 by 4.5-inch side panels, four 4 by 17.5-inch shelves, and twelve 1 by 4-inch dividers. Once you've cut all the pieces, you can stain them. A product like Varathane Dark Walnut Wood Stain should give the shelf a rich, elegant color. However, something like Furniture Clinic Teak Wood Stain might be a better choice if you're going for a minimalist, Scandi-inspired aesthetic instead.

Now it's time to build the box frame for the shelf. Begin by fixing the side panels to the back piece with your nails. Put them in as gently as possible, so you don't split the MDF. Next, fix the top and bottom shelves to complete the box, then insert the remaining two shelves in the middle. Check to make sure everything is sturdy and level. The final step is to use your contact adhesive to attach the dividers. Glue six divider pieces directly onto the three levels of the shelf so they divide them into equal thirds. Then, glue the other six directly above the initial ones. The shelf should now have nine mug cubbies.

There are a couple of things you might want to think about if you're planning to try out this DIY. The first is the size of your mugs. The dimensions of the original project are suitable for normal coffee cups, but if yours are a bit bigger, you might want to increase the shelf's depth. Also, avoid putting your shelf near a sink, because the MDF components might not hold up long term if they're continuously exposed to moisture. If you want to upgrade the project's build quality, consider using plywood instead. Although this material might cost you more, it's less likely to sag than MDF wood. If you opt for plywood, you can use countersunk wood screws in place of the nails. Make sure to drill pilot holes to lessen the likelihood of the wood splitting.

A big part of how nice your shelf looks depends on which of your mugs you put on it. You'll want to familiarize yourself with the best way to style open shelving in kitchens and select pieces that complement your space's existing color palette. A collection of neutral-colored mugs, for example, could fit in perfectly within a modern or minimalist kitchen. Cups with warmer, earthier hues, meanwhile, might look a bit more natural within a country kitchen instead. If you pick an eclectic mix of colors for your shelf's mugs, the fixture might just end up looking cluttered.