DIY Horseshoe Rustic Bathroom Shelf

When you live in a tiny space you quickly turn to your walls for vertical storage solutions. At least that’s been the case for us as we try to figure out the best ways to get organized in our RV.

I knew we needed some additional hanging storage for our bathroom and was instantly inspired when I saw this horseshoe wine rack. Sure, it may have been made for wine, but it was similar in design to what I wanted for towel storage. Yup, it would be the perfect rustic bathroom shelf solution for our bathroom.

A few months ago Eric and I headed up to North Carolina to visit the cabin resort we were married at. The owner builds all of the log homes from reclaimed wood, and while we were there he let us pick out some wood to use in our RV.

I was like a kid in a candy store but had to keep my eyes from wandering to the heavier wood since we would be using it inside our motorhome. Luckily he had a stash of reclaimed cypress that was perfect!

While the majority of the wood we snagged was cypress, we did pick up some reclaimed oak, which we used for our wall-mounted desk. 

DIY Horseshoe Rustic Bathroom Shelf

Eric and I have created a few different projects with this reclaimed cypress and will be sharing those with you soon. With that said, by the time we got to this rustic storage solution for our bathroom we only had a couple of pieces of wood left. Luckily it was just enough to create a four-tiered shelf.

• (Reclaimed) Wood
• Saw – We used our circular saw
• Clamps
• Measuring Tape
• Pencil
• Drill
• Screws
• Nails
• Horseshoes
• Stain – We used this Tung Oil

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The first thing we did was measure and cut the wood. I’m not gonna lie, I really miss having our compound miter saw which made cutting wood a breeze, but it was just a tad big to bring with us on the road. However, we did bring our circular saw which worked great for cutting this wood down to size.

Once the wood was cut we measured out and drew a line where each shelf would need to be attached. This cypress wood is pretty thin, so we just screwed it into the back of the wood. Had it been thicker we probably would have used our Kreg Jig. You could also attach it using metal brackets.

Here’s the shelf quickly coming together with two shelves attached:

And here it is with all four shelves attached:

At this point, all we had to do was stain our wood and attach the new horseshoes I had rusted up. Our DIY horseshoe rustic bathroom shelf is coming together.

See how easy it is to make metal rust in the video below:

 

We still had some tung oil leftover from previous projects so that’s what we used to stain the wood, plus it has a waterproof seal which is great since it will be in the bathroom.

We then attached the horseshoes to the front of the shelves using nails.

At first, we were going to hang the shelf on the wall with hanging hardware but then decided to screw it into the wall for more security when we’re rollin’ down the road.

The most important thing if you’re going to use rusty horseshoes is to make sure they are sealed, otherwise, the rust could come off on your towels. You can use a clear spray sealer, but I just brushed some on.

I made sure the horseshoes were sealed, dry, and free of flaking rust before adding the towels. I also waited over a week to make sure the tung oil was dry.

Here’s our new rustic bathroom shelf:

I LOVE how it turned out and our towels fit perfectly so that they won’t fall out. The wood isn’t perfectly straight and I think one of the horseshoes leans a bit but ya know what? I still love it. It’s perfectly imperfect which works well in our rustic bathroom 🙂

So what do you think of our DIY horseshoe rustic bathroom shelf?

I think this DIY horseshoe rustic bathroom shelf is the perfect way to add a cabin-inspired, or Southwestern touch to your home. If nothing else, I hope it inspires you for that next project.

Update: We love using the shelves to hold extra toilet paper too.

Although we used this design for our bathroom it would work well in so many spaces. Plus I still love the idea of it as a wine rack. What would you use it for?