We love to host and have friends over but we have one rule…no shoes in our apartment! We live in NYC, we don’t want that city dirt tracked into our apartment.

We’ve always alined our shoes on the floor by the door but it was time for an upgrade! We built an easy 2 tiered shoe rack using wooden dowels and copper pipe fittings.

It’s a simple process and can easily be made into any size to fit your space.
First we stained and polyurethaned five 4′ x 7/8” dowels.
Once dry, we then cut them down into pieces:
8 – 3″
4 – 6″
4 – 7″
4 – 3′

We attached all the dowels together with 3/4’’ copper pipe fittings, we needed:
8 x T fittings
8 x 90˚ elbow fittings

We built the sides first, then added the four long center dowels.
Once built we added glue in the pipe fittings to keep it nice and study.

Don’t forget to wear cute socks when you come visit!
13 comments
A fantabulous creation! So easy, but not simplistic in design!
What glue did you use that works on copper and wood?
Hi John! We used gorilla glue! Seems to be working fine for our purposes!
Maybe I missed it, but what color stain did you use? (I don’t watch tutorial videos, not sure if it was in there).
Hey! It’s called Worn Navy! We got it at Home Depot!
Hey Guys,
Love this idea. So useful and looks awesome. Stop by Over The Moon Linky Party since you are one of my features.
Hugs,
Bev
Hi Beverly!! Woooohoo!! Gonna stop on by! Thank you!
We love your creativity! This post is a Feature at the Merry Monday party! Sharing on our channels.
Hi Shirley! Yay! Thank you!!!
Ok my dears! I’m trying to convince my husband that we need to make this over the weekend. I can not find a 4’x8” dowel anywhere. Heeeeelp!
Hi Amber! Ahh! It was a typo! It’s really 4’x7/8th”. We found our dowels and pipe fittings at Home Depot, which was great because we could check to make sure they fit together. We are so sorry, we corrected the post! Thanks for the heads up!
Hi guys! I’m new with building/staining my own furniture. I saw your other post about which stain you used but would like to know what you used pre and post stain? Let me know If possible as I am going to make this my next project!
Hi! Hmmm we didn’t use a pre-stain. When we finish our wood projects we like to use a polyurethane, depending on what we’re doing we either use the wipe on or the thicker sanding the coats in between. Hope this helps a bit!! We know there are a ton of options out there, so it can be confusing.