DIY Foam Board Shelves

I have a love hate relationship with white wire shelving. It’s affordable, readily available, adjustable and pretty nice looking. I should probably just resort to loving it because it’s in every one of our closets. But it can be so difficult to use. Crumbs fall, spills are messy, it’s difficult to clean and many items won’t stand straight on top of them.

Thank goodness the fix is super simple and affordable!

Foam board was my preferred solution since it was thick enough to hold everything and pretty easy to work with. But it created it’s own problems. Spills aren’t easy to wipe up. Plus the white color is a little boring. I wanted some color! Here’s my solution:

Supplies

• Foam board
• Pencil
• Measuring tape
• Ruler
• Scissor / cutting tools (here’s my favorite!)
• Wrapping paper / contact paper
• Adhesive spray

Instructions 

Measure your shelves width and depth in the area where the foam shelf board will go.

Next cut the foam board just a tiny bit shorter than your shelf measurements. My shelf measured at 25′ w x 12′ d so I cut the foam board to 24′ w x 11 1/2′ d. Its much easier to make your foam boards a little too small as opposed to a little too big, especially after the next step of covering with wrapping paper or contact paper.

I then cut my contact paper / wrapping the same width as the foam board and one inch longer in depth than the foam board. This is so I could wrap the wrapping paper over the front side edges of the foam board.

If you’re using contact paper, simply place your contact paper onto the foam board (if you struggle with contact paper, take a look at my tutorial). For those using wrapping paper, follow these instructions:

Spray the adhesive spray over the foam board and place your wrapping paper on top. Starting in the middle, smooth the wrapping paper onto the board. I grabbed a long book to help smooth it down (a ruler would have been an easier choice, but I couldn’t find one).

Then spray about an inch in length on the opposite side of the foam bard so that you can wrap that extra 1 inch of wrapping paper around it. Remember that when using the adhesive spray make sure you’re in a well ventilated area.

Now place your foam board shelf cover onto your wire shelf and stock up with all your items.  You can LOVE wire shelving again!

(It was because of these binders that I was inspired to make the foam board shelves. It’s IMPOSSIBLE to store binders on wire shelving without the foam boards!)