DIY Cottage Peg Rail Shelf

Close to six months into this kitchen renovation, we’re finally at the finishing steps, which includes making this DIY cottage peg rail shelf that gives me at least one little finished corner of the room to look at and see progress.

It’s the perfect addition to an otherwise blank wall and it adds some functional but aesthetic storage. The best part? The materials only cost about $65 and it was a one-day project.

When we designed this kitchen, I knew I wanted this section of wall to be free of upper cabinets. Firstly, we would’ve had an exposed end of the cabinets into the dining room which I don’t love, and I felt like it would’ve blocked some of the little light that naturally comes into the room, so instead I crafted up this shelf.

It’s almost four feet long and one foot deep, and was a beast to put into place.

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The unusual lumber material we used

The top actual shelf part is made out of something a little wild: a stair tread. Being that the shelf is so deep (so it can hold plates etc.), I knew a 1×12 would be too thin for what I wanted and a 2×12 would be too chonky, so this stair tread was the perfect in-the-middle at just over an inch thick.

Stair treads come standard at four feet long, and have a bullnose detail along one of the long edges. I ripped that edge off to be square with my table saw, but this could be done with a circular saw or jigsaw with a guide if you don’t have a table saw.)

Pine is kind of like your college friend who was just like always there, ya know. You never really had to invite them but they always knew where the party would be and you would without a doubt have a good time when you saw them.

Pine is inexpensive and pretty readily available, but it does have drawbacks like being knotty and splotchy when stained. The stair treads also came in red oak, and I would’ve chosen that option if I was staining but since I knew I’d prime and paint, pine worked perfectly fine.

Assembling the shelf

The lower part of the shelf is made up of a 1×6 (important: I made sure not to use MDF here, it needed to be solid wood to be as strong as possible), and two of these corbels from Lowe’s.

I cut three pieces of wood – one for the longer center span and one for each of the outside ends of the corbel. From the back, I drilled pocket holes from the 1×6 into the corbels to secure it all together as one piece.

Adding the shaker pegs

It wouldn’t be much of a DIY cottage peg rail without the shaker pegs now, would it? I’ve made a peg rail before with the more traditional hammer-in type, but these screw-in shaker pegs are much easier to use.

I put the whole shelf back-down on the ground and measured the center point of my 1×6 piece vertically, then put my laser level across the whole way to show a straight line.

Next, knowing I wanted 7 pegs across the center section, I took the measurement of that whole center piece and divided it by eight, marking that distance the whole way along horizontally until I had 7 markings for the pegs along the laser level line. I added one marking on each of the end pieces right in the center.

I pre-drilled holes and hand screwed those shaker pegs in place until they were nice and tight.

Adding the top, caulk and paint

I used 3-inch construction screws to attach the stair tread piece along the top of the shaker peg piece making sure there were two screws going into each corbel. I covered those holes up with wood filler – they probably won’t be visible being so high up but I’m trying my best not to be lazy and cut corners these days which really goes against my soul.

Next, I caulked all the edges, primed the entire piece, lightly sanded with a 180-grit sanding block, added a coat of paint, sanded again, and painted a second coat (I used Sherwin Williams Shoji White).

Sanding between coats is one of those things I always thought people just said to do, but it turns out they’re onto something and it actually does give a smoother finish.

Securing to the wall

Was I beyond nervous to drill into my new backsplash tile? Yep, but it had to be done.

We thought we knew where the studs were but spoiler: we ended up putting like 12 holes into the wall before we felt confident enough that we had hit two studs, and we added two screws into each of those knowing that this shelf would be holding a pretty heavy load.

We used a regular drill bit through the 1×6, then switched to a tile drill bit for the backsplash, and went back to a regular drill bit once we got through to the stud.

This thing isn’t going anywhere: I immediately loaded it up with all the heavy things from glasses to bowls to giant cookbooks. The shelf gives so much character to this section of wall and gives some warmth to an otherwise pretty clean and neutral palette.

Next up after this DIY cottage peg rail shelf is a vent hood surround on the other end of the wall. Oh, and the million little things like toe kicks, caulking, adding trim to the island, taking the cabinets to the ceiling, that still need doing but let’s take a win where we can.