The Simple Shelf DIY That Keeps Spare Paper Towels Neat And Organized

According to Consumer Reports, 75% of Americans with a warehouse club membership buy their paper towels in bulk there. Such stores often have the cheapest prices on name-brand paper towels. However, storing all the rolls can require some planning and creative designs. When buying them in bulk, you might want to deploy ideas for keeping paper towels out of sight while making sure they're still convenient to get.

You could purchase storage baskets designed to hold paper towels, but these solutions occupy floor space and can become pricey if they're using high-end materials. As another option, if you're willing to tackle a beginner-level woodworking project, you can build your own shelf made specifically to hold rolls of paper towels. By building a custom DIY shelf instead of buying a shelf kit, you'll have the precise size you need, and you'll avoid wasting space thanks to a pre-configured shelf that isn't necessarily made for paper towel rolls.

Hanging a shelf inside a pantry or closet is one of many paper towel storage options that also keeps the rolls out of sight. Using vertical storage solutions like shelving is a great way to take advantage of space along a wall inside a pantry that otherwise goes unused. Because the DIY shelves will be holding lightweight paper towels and are hidden inside a pantry or closet, you don't have to use the most expensive hardwood to support a significant amount of weight. You might even be able to use wood scraps from other projects, letting you save some extra money.

Figure out where you want to add the shelf and roughly how many rolls you want to store at a time. A typical paper towel roll is 11 inches in height and five inches in diameter, but you'll want to measure your favorite rolls to double-check the measurements. If the boards you're planning to use are rough, you should sand them to avoid the risk of splinters. You could paint them white if you want the shelf to blend in better with the rolls.

Figure out how long the shelf should be. If you typically have 10 rolls to store and they have a five-inch diameter, you should create a shelf length of at least 50 inches — or at least 25 inches if you want to stack two rolls on each other. You should make the shelf a couple of inches longer than your measurements indicate you need, so the rolls are not too tightly packed.

Secure a two-by-four to wall studs to support the base of the shelf, spanning the length that you calculated earlier. You can use multiple short two-by-fours to span the length if you're using scrap wood. Now attach the main segment of the shelf to the top edge of the two-by-fours, matching its entire length. It needs to be more than half as wide as the diameter of your paper towel roll to prevent the rolls from falling through. If you have five-inch diameter rolls, the shelf wood should be at least three inches wide. A one-by-four or segments of plywood should work well for the main shelf.

Add end pieces to the outer edges of the two-by-four to hold the rolls in place. A one-by-six is ideal for the end piece, if you have one available. It's important that the end pieces have a width measurement slightly greater than the diameter of the roll. If your rolls are five inches in diameter, the end piece should be about 5.5 inches in width (back to front) The end piece height should be close to the height of the paper towel product that you'll be storing. A single roll should have roughly a nine-inch end piece; for stacked rolls, the end piece should be closer to 20 inches tall. 

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If the end pieces seem flimsy, you can use small screws with L brackets to affix them to the wall at the top. Then, place a thin one-by-two or a similar piece of wood across the front of the shelf, attaching it to the front edges of the end pieces. The top of this front piece should be roughly around the midpoint of the height of your paper towel rolls, which would be 5.5 inches above the main shelf piece for an 11-inch roll. If you plan to stack the rolls, place a second front board at the midpoint of the upper roll in the stack, which would be about 16.5 inches above the main shelf piece. If you're worried about the stacked products falling through, you could add a third front board at the height where the two stacked rolls meet, but this is rarely necessary.