Looking to incorporate some baseball themed storage in your home office or child’s bedroom? These simple baseball inspired shelves are a great way to display a collection, books or even toys.
You can make these simple baseball bat shelves in less than 2 hours. You should expect to pay about $50 or less. You can really save some money if you use existing baseball bats to make the shelves.
You can also use almost any kind of shelf bracket in place of the L brackets if you have some. If not L brackets are so inexpensive and great for a variety of projects.
To Make These Baseball Bat Shelves You Will Need:
Regular old baseball bats or vintage baseball bats
Power drill
Drill Bit
Screws
L Brackets
1X6 Boards
Now, the first step is to find your baseball bats. You can use vintage baseball bats that you have collected for this project or even new baseball bats. You can find great baseball bats at Wal-Mart, Target, and almost any sporting goods store. I find them from as little as $5 of the cheap ones all the way to $50 for the collector’s addition.
Now, at this point you have a few optional. You can create this simple shelving out of whole baseball bats or you can have them cut in half vertically If you want ot cut them in half vertically you will need to use a power saw to do this. You could also pay a carpenter to cut it in half fro very little money.
Now, whether you cut the baseball bar in half or not the next step is the same.
Drill on hole through the top of the bat, about three inches down from the end. Now, drill a second hole in the bottom of that bat, about three inches up from the bottom.
You want the hole to go entirely through the bat so you screw can go through it and attach into the wall.
Now, I always prefer that you hang shelving in a stud on the wall, but if that is just not an option you do have some alternatives.
You can use dry wall anchors and screws. You could also use toggle bolts. I find toggle bolts to be the best option if you plan to put any amount of weight on the shelving.
Now, Place your screw through the baseball bat and attach it into the wall. Repeat this process with your second baseball bat as far to the left or right that you want your shelving to extend.
You can make this shelving as wide or narrow as you want. You can also use almost any type of shelving that you want, not just 1X6 boards.
Now, attach your L bracket to the left and right baseball bats. You can use a long level to make sure they are installed so your shelving will be correct.
Lay the wood shelving across the L brackets. Use screws to attach the wood shelving to the L brackets. This is important because your baseball bats till not be flat.
Tips:
You do not have to leave the wood shelving on the baseball bats plain. You could add some paint in a color that matches the decor in your room. You could also stain the wood to match the baseball bats.
If you are going to stain the wood on the baseball bats, then try buying your 1X6 boards in a good quality wood like maple or birch. If you plan on painting them, then your can use MDF or pine.
Now, this project only takes two baseball bats, but it can easily support betwenn2 to three shelves. If you wanted to make smaller shelves to hold small accessories or CDs, then you really could fit 4 shelves on this.
