How to Decorate a Coat Rack Shelf

If there is a shelf above your coat rack, you can decorate it with colorful paint.

Many coat racks in modern homes are built with a shelf slightly above the rack for hanging coats. This shelf can serve a variety of purposes and is a good use for storage of what would otherwise be empty space in a closet. Since this shelf is often visible to guests, as it lies just above where they can hang their coats, whatever you store on the shelf should be neatly stacked and organized. You can also decorate the shelf itself for an added touch.

Things You'll Need

• Paint in contrasting colors to the interior of the coat closet
• Large and fine paintbrushes
• Stencils
• Damp rag
• Newspaper
• Masking tape

Instructions

1. Empty out the coat closet before painting the shelf. Clean the shelf with a damp rag. Tape off the wall with masking tape along the top and bottom of the shelf to make a clean line when painting. Cover the floor of the closet with newspaper.

2. Paint the shelf a base color that differs from the rest of the coat closet. Let dry, apply another coat of paint to cover, and let dry again. Remove masking tape, peeling off slowly.

3. Decorate the front edge of the shelf using stencils. Use small stencils with a single shape and make a pattern chain of the images. Hold the stencil up against the shelf edge with some pressure, to eliminate gaps between the shelf and stencil where the paint could drip. Use a fine brush and small amounts of paint, starting at the outside edge of the stencil and moving toward the center, working slowly and carefully.

4. Allow the first stencil painting to dry before adding another to avoid smudging the paint.

Tips & Warnings

• Use a large hand-held paintbrush for the base color, being careful to catch any drips along the edge of the shelf.

References

• This Old House: Painting With Stencils
• Stencil Search: Shelf Stencils