Cramped Cabinets? This Coffee Mug Storage DIY Is A Game-Changer

Unless you're one of those preternaturally organized people (you know who you are), your coffee mug collection is probably spread throughout your cabinets. We acquire them from friends, family members, meetings we were in a big hurry to leave, friends and family members we were in a big hurry to leave, and at least one a year from a vacation rental. (The Airbnb owner doesn't want it back, by the way; she accidentally took it from a meeting 16 years ago.) We also tend to have a few treasures — irregular cups and oddities like, say, an enormously thick, beer-stein-style mug with a rather grim hunting scene merrily reproduced on its side. What all of this treasure needs is a shelf of its own, a way to simultaneously show it off while getting it out of the way of your rapidly burgeoning teacup collection.

TikToker @grillodesigns has you covered. With a spare bit of plywood from her garage, she whipped up a nine-mug shelf that sits on her kitchen counter and looks fantastic. It consists of a back, two sides, a top and bottom, and two shelves in the center. There are also a handful of little divider pieces that keep the mugs separated while still allowing them to spill over into adjacent spaces when necessary.

As great as this version is, you have some choices and potential refinements you can make for a personal touch. For example, use the nine-mug arrangement for a tic-tac-toe board (not unlike a toilet paper storage hack we love) if you're really trying to get rid of some cups through droppage. But there are other, more practical options as well.

First, there's breaking down all the materials according to whatever plan you're working from. Your cubby grid doesn't necessarily need a back if you're mounting the shelf to a wall. If you want it to have that extra strength but don't want the back piece to be very visible, you can always paint it to match your wall color. Paint or stain all the other pieces in your desired finish. 

@grillodesigns

DIY MUG SHELF. I used a spare sheet of plywood and cut everything to size with a circular saw. Sanded the edges, then stained the wood (slightly rushed, but we move). Once dry, I assembled it using wood glue and nails . Still deciding on the whether I like the colour, but I love how practical it's been already. What do you think? #diy #diyshelf #cupshelf

♬ original sound – Grillodesigns

Now, measure for the shelf locations, and connect your top, sides, and shelves. In @grillodesigns' process, wood glue and brads are used. The wood glue will provide durability, while the brads will hold everything together until the glue dries. Finally, glue in the divider pieces on the inside corners of every cubby. Note that joining MDF has its own peculiarities, if you happen to be using it instead of wood. There's also a cool shortcut for this project: Use a thrifted drawer for the basic structure of your coffee mug storage.

The most common modification we've seen (there are a lot of these shelves on TikTok) is cutting the shelves with shelf-thickness interlocking slots. This can be challenging with limited tools and experience, but it will certainly make for a much sturdier mug shelf. Some have even used this arrangement to assemble the shelves without glue so that the horizontal shelves are removable when separated from the interlocking vertical parts. Lastly, consider adding a little lip of material at the edge of each shelf to keep a slammed door from knocking your treasured Hyatt Resorts Albuquerque mug over.