DIY Baker’s Plate Rack

Some time ago, I saw a plate rack on Pinterest that a clever maker had created. I fell in love with it instantly. The plate rack had a recipe for Pound Cake printed on the inside so when plates were on the shelves it was partially covered. The idea of a quirky DIY plate rack appealed to me so I decided to make one myself. To me, it was the perfect way to immortalise my Nan’s scone recipe while creating a piece of funtional decor for our home.

All in, the plate rack cost around $45 to make but we did have most of the materials on hand. However, even if you had to buy the materials, it would be inexpensive to recreate something like this. My estimate is around $120 which is super cheap for a bespoke piece of furntiure nobody else would have.

Materials for a DIY Plate Rack

• 600 x 1200 MDF sheet
• 2 x 1200 trim pine pieces for the sides
• 4 x 600 trim pine pieces for top, bottom, and shelves
• 6 x 600 pieces for the cross bars (ours at 10 x 10mm square)
• a drill, a saw, counter sinking screws, finishing nails,PVA or wood glue
• white chalk paint (I used Rustoleum Linen White)
• recipe decal

Steps to Follow

Making this plate rack is the perfect introduction to DIY and using wood. I bought a piece of MDF at 600 x 1200. 1200 is a standard timber measurement in Australia so buying at this size not only gives you a good sized finished piece but the trim will only need to be cut once, possibly twice, to fit.

The first thing I did was to paint the backing board of the plate rack with chalk paint. As mentioned in the materials list, I used Rustoleum LInen White. I had this on hand and it dries very quickly. (You know I am an impatient DIYer). While the paint was drying I designed my decal in Cricut Design Space. You could easily make a stencil in Word or on Canva to do the same if you don’t have a Cricut. After I was satisfied with look, I cut out my design.

When the paint was dry I laid out the design and ruled faint pencil lines to ensure it lined up and I knew where to place the design.

Gavin cut two pieces of pine to the length of the sides and glued and screwed these in place. We repeated this step with four shorter timber pieces to make the top, bottom and shelves. Then I put the recipe decals in place.

We nailed slats of raw pine across the front of the shelves to finish the rack. I like the contrast between the raw pine and the white of the rack. It looks so sweet and is just as effective as the little shelf I made over for $7 a couple of years back!

What do you think? I’d love to hear your comments