Shoe rack in PVC – tutorial

We really had a problem storing our shoes. My hubby is a skaterboy and has a shoe collection that is uncomparable to the one of the average woman.  I don’t know about you, but all the shoe racks we came across are made for 10 pair of shoes or so… I am sorry but that is not even coming close to what we have to store- even not when we buy 3 of such things.
So DIY mummy decided to build one her own. This is the result:

I wanted something BIG, that would at least partly hide the content. So no wood open rack, and looking on Pinterest I was inspired by this PVC shoe rack. It is super nice and white, but I wanted to make it with symmetric rows.

This is how I started: buying 20cm wide PVC pipes here, I figured that was wide enough to fit most pairs of shoes (both of them in one whole), which turned out fine.  Since I wanted a big rack, I bought 4 pipes of 5m, which allowed to make 11 rows of 6 pieces. The pipes are unfortunately quite expensive; don’t forget to also buy special (read: chemical!!) hard PVC glue in a pot; I needed 2 of them.
The sawing is quite a job; you need to measure round and round very precisely (I took 29cm deep).  And then you need to make a scission with the hand saw for your jig saw to be able to go in. The plastic here was 5mm thick so quite heavy to saw the whole way around – 66 times 🙂

Glueing is the fun part. Mind that you apply the glue to both side of the surface. I was surprised by how solid the glue made the whole rack… which in the end doesn’t need any side shelf. I supported the free side with some blocks, while the glue was drying. The whole rack stands on its own and doesn’t move to the sides. Only, if you make it as high as mine (220cm), you should secure the top of the rack to the wall. I fixed that with 2 L-hooks, invisible and easy as can be.

And I am so happy! It blends well in the interior of our hallway. I doubted to paint it, but in the end I like the industrial look.

What I like is that it partly hides the shoes. From the front side of course not, but when entering the hallway and seeing it from the side, doesn’t give the messy rack feeling.