How to Make a Soap Display Shelf
A lot of people these days are into making their own homemade soap. Every soap is packaged in colorful wraps with decorative ribbons. Homeowners enjoy displaying fine handmade soaps and you can easily learn how to make a soap display shelf of your own.
Things You'll Need:
- Sandpaper
- Edge router bit
- Router
- 1 inch Hardwood lumber
- Wood stain
- Paintbrush
- Tack cloth
- Metal shelf brackets and screws
- Wall anchors
- Saw
- Screwdriver
- Drill
Purchase enough hardware to complete your display shelf. For this project, we will be using hardwood lumber that has been cut to 8 inches wide and 18 inches in length for the soap shelf. You can increase the size if desired. Choose from the many varieties of hardwoods including birch, maple, oak, walnut or mahogany.
Decide where in the bathroom you would like to mount the display shelf. Most often people will install a shelf above the toilet or the towel bar.
Set up your router and worktable to rout decorative edges on the hardwood that has been cut to the desired size. Select an edge router bit to create a nice pattern. Rout each of the two edges and across the front edge. It is not necessary to route the edge of the backside that will be mounted flush with the wall.
Use fine-grit sandpaper to sand the edges of the board until smooth.
Apply a tack cloth over the entire board to remove sanding dust.
Set up an area where you can stain the board and let it dry for approximately three days. Read manufacture's instructions about applying wood stain. Generally, you brush on one or two even coats and let dry.
Use screws to attach two decorative shelf brackets on the bottom portion of the board. Position each bracket 2 inches from the end of the board on each side.
- Attach each bracket to the wall using screws and wall anchors to make sure you have a sturdy attachment to the wall.