Neither Cabinets Nor Hooks: The DIY Coffee Mug Storage Idea You'll Love

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The natural temptation when confronted with kitchen clutter is to hide it or make it conform to your space, or both. This is a habit of mind, though, and not a requirement for actual order. What if you could let your treasures — often valued specifically for their variation — occupy their own space with their own rules? You might struggle to pull this off with toys, model trains, or your carefully curated collection of Things Made of Yardsticks. But when it comes to mugs we've got you covered with an easy-to-DIY coffee cup curio shelf display. It just takes a few boards and some fasteners,

San Diego-based lo-fi beatmaker and potter Daniel Markowitz, who goes by the handle @lofipotter, calls his mug storage a "cubicle shelf." His cubicle shelf was actually made by his friend, Jake, with some assistance from Markowitz. We've seen a few great coffee mug storage DIYs that involve cabinets and hooks, but, by our count, Markowitz's project can handle 40 or more cups, mugs, and other goodies. Yes, it's big, but it looks great and it shouldn't take more than an afternoon, start to finish.

This build is the kind of thing you can mostly intuit by looking at it, but Markowitz defies all TikTok norms and actually shows a fair amount of the process in his video. Start with four 1 by 4 pine boards (something like these 8-foot Square-Edge Whitewood Boards from Home Depot). Next comes the layout of the interior dividers that make this project what it is. Be careful to keep everything square as you cut and lay out these pieces. Jake joins them together with brads and possibly some wood glue, after which he sands the edges of the boards. It's not clear why he didn't sand the edges when he sanded the faces, but it makes sense since sanding the edges is easier on the fully assembled piece, and doesn't require sanding the cutoffs pointlessly.

Then, use a trim router to chamfer the corners — a sort of low-profile bevel cut that eases the sharp corners just slightly. Sand your work to smooth everything out, then stain the finished piece. This creative craft holds not just mugs, but also a pour-over drip coffee maker, teapots, and other pottery. According to his comments, the piece was screwed directly into the ceiling and an adjacent wall.

As with most woodworking projects, even the simplest, there are some tips that can make the whole process go more smoothly. Markowitz and Jake do a remarkably good job, but it can't have been quite as easy as it looks on TikTok. It's important to start with a cabinet design, since improvising is unlikely to work out well for anyone without experience. Create a sketch and work from that, like Jake does. Take real-world measurements of the mugs you want to store and display, and use those figures (plus a little padding) to size your shelves. Mix up the sizes in whatever way looks best. Look for a pattern, but don't make it symmetrical; it's unnecessary and needlessly complicated. Don't forget to leave empty space so the final piece isn't too dense. Make sure each board meant to hold a mug can be traced to at least one vertical support — or an awful lot of lateral support.

Then comes the business of making everything square. Jake has the right idea, checking each new element with a speed square to make sure it's at a proper 90-degree angle to the boards it's attached to. But a speed square can be challenging to use in tight spaces, so you might be better off with a smaller try square or, better still, with a WEN 3 x 2 x 1-Inch Block with every face perpendicular (that is, at a 90-degree angle) to adjacent faces. It would make quick work of checking every little board for square.