House Cubby Wall Shelf

My friend Cristina shared her House Advent Calendar for our November Woodworker’s challenge. I loved the way her house looked and I decided to make my own house cubby wall shelf.

House Shaped Cubby Wall Shelf

I sort of followed Cristina’s plans for the cut list. However, I changed up a couple of things. I used 1/2” stock for the frame, and 1/4” stock for the cubby boards of the house shelf.

Design Cubby Shelf

You can see I printed out her plans and was following the color coded details. I worked a little differently than she did. My plan was to glue all the shelf cubbies, then frame them with the shape of the house. I used blocks of wood to try to keep each cubby square. That’s a good plan, but it’s not the best way to keep everything square.

I laid out all the pieces and propped them up to make sure all was well.

Because the plans are color coded, I labeled each piece with the color and the orientation. You can see this one is green and it installs horizontally.

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Clamp & Glue Sections

I chose several sections at a time to clamp and glue. I always use Gorilla Wood Glue. After a few sections were glued, then I started connecting them.

The weather turned cold, so I had to move into the house. My plan was to NOT glue to the frame until the end, but I got confused and ended up gluing a few of the cubby boards to the outside house frame.

Painter’s tape was helpful to hold the joints together until the glue set up. It did take a couple of days because of waiting for that. Full disclosure: I made a mistake with one of the VERY first sections I put together. The color on the plans was brown, but I mistook it for dark violet. Therefore, near the end, I had to make some different arrangements.

It got a little crazy with all the clamps! I used dabs of painter’s tape to keep track of the cubby holes so this could be used as a Advent Calendar in addition to a cubby wall shelf.

Using Painter’s Tape for Clamping

Again, the painter’s tape was so great to hold the corners together before I glued the house frame.

I used 4×4’s to square the joints of the house cubby wall shelf. Had I not taped the corners of the blocks, they would have glued themselves to the cubby. This trick has been done before when I repaired a headboard.

Sand Everything Smooth

Using a sanding sponge is smoothed all the edges, inside and out. This is a necessary step before painting.

Use Jigsaw to Cut Thin Plywood

I drew the outline of the cubby wall shelf on a piece of thin plywood and cut the shape with my jigsaw.

How to Paint Cubby Wall Shelf

Of course, I used my Homeright Super Finish Max to primer this monster. But, again the weather turned cold and I had to work indoors. I tried to paint a topcoat by hand and it was horrible!

I did two more light topcoats outside with the Finish Max.

House Shaped Cubby Wall Shelf for Home Decor

This thing is really large. I did end up gluing and tacking the outside frame with my nail gun.

All of these Christmas decor items came from dollar stores. I staged it for Christmas, but this could be used as everyday decor for your favorite collectibles. I highly recommend that you check out Cristina’s project to see how you would like to go about making your own house shaped cubby wall shelf.

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gail