Creating Storage Between the Studs in Your Walls

Shelving Between Studs Between Studs Shelving
Image: Handcrafted medicine cabinets by Wood Essentials

Recessed, between-the-studs shelving and storage niches help you de-clutter and stay organized without sacrificing valuable square footage.

Your home is hiding hundreds of square feet of potential storage space. Utilizing this organizational bonanza is as simple as removing a modest-size rectangle of drywall to reveal the hollow space between wall studs, and adding a shelving niche.

Although the available space is shallow, a between-the-studs shelving niche 14 inches tall offers almost one-third cubic foot of storage—enough for decorative display items or more than 50 CDs. A between-the-studs shelving and storage niche also preserves valuable floor space, since it eliminates the need for freestanding storage.  

Ideas for Between-the-Studs Shelving

Kitchen: Between-studs shelving is ideal as a kitchen pantry because the shallow shelves are perfect for canned goods. You also can use a niche for storing spices, hanging utensils, or storing and displaying your cooking pans.

Bathroom: Install a between-studs storage niche in the shower for holding shampoo bottles and soaps. A shallow niche beside the toilet holds magazines and toilet paper. Near the sink, create a recess for toiletries and personal items.

Bedroom: Use recessed storage for CDs, paperback books, magazines, belts, scarves, and jewelry. You can also create a wall niche for your flat screen television as long as a header provides support where studs are removed.

Family room: Store pool cues, balls, and the triangle as well as CDs, wine or liquor, and barware.

How to Create Between-the-Studs Shelving

You'll need moderate DIY skills and a basic knowledge of framing to build your own recessed wall niche. Once you’ve located studs with a stud finder and made sure the wall cavity is void of wires, plumbing, or air ducts, frame the opening and finish it with drywall or other materials, such as beaded board, then add shelving. Cost: $17 to $35, for a 14x36-inch niche.

Various sizes of prebuilt recessed wall niches are available in wood as well as less expensive polyurethane units. These units are customized to perform a range of storage tasks, including serve as a medicine cabinet, a home bar and as a shower niche. Cost: $90 to $500.

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Jan Soults Walker
Jan Soults Walker

Jan Soults Walker Nationally published home improvement writer Jan Soults Walker has more than 30 years' experience, remodeling several of her own homes and reporting on everything from kitchen sinks to luxurious mansions. Even now, a deck of paint chips still makes her heart sing.