How to Make a Modern Peg Rail with a Shelf

Hey hey! Happy Wednesday, my friends! Today I’m sharing a quick tutorial on how to make a modern peg rail with a shelf. It’s so easy and can be put in any room!

We’ve slowly been etching away at Landon’s nursery to get it all finalized. When we moved into our new house, we had only a couple months before his due date. I didn’t really have much energy after moving to put together a beautiful nursery, so I did what I could and called it good. A year later, we’re finally getting around to redoing a few things.

I saw a picture floating around Facebook not long ago of a cute peg rail in a living room. They had pretty framed prints hanging from string on the hooks. I thought it was so unique, I knew I wanted one in Landon’s room, too! I wanted to add a shelf above the peg rail as well so I could put a few knick knacks and plants I had displayed in his room.

So last weekend, we took a trip to Home Depot to get wood and a few supplies, and we put this together in just under two days. I sure love simple and quick DIY projects!

To make your own modern peg rail with a shelf, you’ll need:

• Two 1×4’s, cut to your desired length
• Round dowel 3/4 in (or your desired thickness)
• White paint (I used spray paint to make it a little faster)
• Wood glue
• Sandpaper
• Circular 3/4in drill bit + drill
• Paintable wood putty
• Screws & nails
• Saw
• Ruler + pencil

To start, we cut both 1×4’s to 7ft long to fit the wall and sanded the ends smooth. We then measured where we wanted to put the pegs, and marked it along one of the 1×4’s. We started about 3in. in on either side, then about 8in. apart all along the middle.

We then used our 3/4in size circular drill bit and drilled the holes for the pegs.

I decided on 4 inch pegs, so I measured and cut each one, then sanded the ends as well.

The pegs fit pretty snug into the holes, but I still dabbed a little wood glue inside each hole. We used a rubber mallet to tap them tightly into the holes so they were flush with the back of the board.

After all the pegs were in, I spray painted the whole peg rail white, as well as the wood for the shelf.

To hang the peg rail, we found where the studs were in the wall and made marks. We pre-drilled holes into the studs as well as the rail, then screwed the rail into the wall.

Attaching the shelf was a little bit weird for ours, and there’s definitely an easier way. A Kreg Jig will absolutely make life so much easier in this project, but sadly we don’t have one so we had to improvise!

We figured it’d be easier to attach the shelf to the peg rail once the peg rail was already on the wall. Unfortunately our wood was slightly warped when we bought it, so we tried to take that into account. It wasn’t easy and it dips down just ever so slightly in the middle because of it, but it still works just fine!

We dabbed a line of wood glue all across the top of the peg rail, then set the shelf on top. We used a few nails on top to secure the piece of wood down, as well as a few clamps while the glue dried. Again, this is definitely not the ideal way of getting the shelf on, but sometimes you just gotta run with what you’ve got!

After a couple hours, we removed the clamps and were done! I decorated the shelf with a few things that were already in his nursery, and added a few more items.

I love love love how it turned out, and that it gives me a few extra places to decorate and hang things, too! His room is really small and there isn’t a lot of room for extra furniture, so having more space was much needed!

The little black dresser we currently have is just too small for this wall, so I found a fabulous long mid-century dresser that I’m working on painting to put in here instead. Keep an eye out for that one!

We still a little work left to do in Landon’s nursery, but stay tuned for the reveal coming soon!

Wishing you a wonderful rest of the week!

(If you want to check out what Jade’s nursery looked like, you can find it here! It was one of my very first posts!)