DIY Guide To Build Your Own Vintage Inspired Plate Rack

I am so in love with this vintage inspired DIY plate rack that my husband built for me, and today I am sharing a step by step guide on how to build your own plate rack!

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Happy Friday friends! In case you missed it, last Friday I shared a little winter home tour that included my new, vintage inspired plate rack that my sweet husband Mike built for me. You can watch the full tour including some winter decorating ideas up above!

So many of you commented and reached out to me asking for a tutorial to build your own plate rack, and I knew I had to write a whole blog post to give everyone a step by step guide! Thankfully we were able to use a lot of materials we already had on hand, and this project came together in no time. Let me just say, I am so thankful for my husband Mike’s handiness and the way he is able to literally bring my dreams to life.

If you recall, this wall used to be a chalkboard! I simply painted the wall with black chalk paint and then hung a frame around it. It was definitely a fun space for the boys to create vacation countdowns and bucket lists, but honestly it didn’t get much use.

I knew this wall would be the perfect space to have some kind of shelving for my antique Pfaltzgraff collection. I have been collecting their Heritage dishes for years and have them display on the floating shelves in my dining room!

If you have ever shopped around for a plate rack, you know they can get pretty pricey. As I was looking at different designs, I asked Mike if he thought it might be something he could build. To my delight, he was pretty confident he could make a DIY plate rack to turn this little wall in my kitchen into a storage space for my Pflatzgraff purchases!

The plate rack consists of two pieces of reclaimed barn wood that are Kreg jigged together.
A Kreg Jig is essentially a pocket hole tool that joins the boards together. Once he joined two boards together to create the width at the base of the plate rack for the larger plates, we then penciled out a design like a scalloped edge that he cut out using his jig saw.

I know that’s a lot of information right off the start, but that’s probably the trickiest part about this DIY plate rack project! The side pieces being joined together with the Kreg jig tool, and then drawing out your scallop style design is the most time consuming step.

The top of the plate rack scallop design (the thinner portion of the plate rack) is 4.5 inches wide and the bottom portion is 9 inches wide at the widest point. The plate rack itself is about 37 inches tall, and the first two shelves are just the width of the top portion, 4 1/2 inches deep. Mike used his nail gun and popped nails on the outside pieces into the shelf portion to keep them in place.

He also used his table saw and set it at a certain depth in order to make a little ridge to put the plates in so that they wouldn’t slide off the shelf. He cut about an inch thick piece of barn wood to use as a sort of stopper or a guard in case the plate fell forward.

We wanted the plate to have a guard so that it wouldn’t just fall off the shelf. We also wanted those pieces to look more authentic, so Mike actually cut into the the wood itself creating like a joint and cut into the sides of the shelf in order to pound those guard rails in.

We purchased a bunch of really small dowel rods. You can purchase the rods in multiple sizes if you prefer a larger look. The rods we purchased were about a quarter of an inch thick and about we cut them down to 12 inches tall.

We then used another board to create the design that he wanted and drilled all the holes through it and that just helped him to know where to drill on the actual barn wood so he wouldn’t mess up. It created a sort of template for him to follow. Mike spaced those all about 2 inches apart in order to allow for plates to slide in between the dowel rods.

He also put a tiny little strip right in front of the plate that he just nailed down with his nail gun stop the plates from rolling off the shelf. Finally, we purchased gold cup hooks for the bottom for all of the cups, and Mike filled the holes he made with his Kreg Jig using plugs and wood glue.

To match the reclaimed barn wood, I applied Annie Sloan dark wax to all the new wood pieces. I’ve used this wax before, and it’s an excellent match for aged wood! After applying the wax, I chose not to seal or add any additional finishes.

I hope these DIY plate rack instructions helped, and that you are able to build your own using this guide! Honestly, it was a pretty easy building project using mostly materials we already had, from our reclaimed barn wood to our power tools. You can definitely customize the width of your shelves to accommodate different sized platters, trays or even silverware!

I am so in love with this plate rack and the way it looks with all the updates in my kitchen! What do you think of my new diy plate rack? Let me know in the comments below!

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