Our San Francisco apartment had an old-style ironing board cabinet in the kitchen which wasn't being used. Rather than let it go as waisted space, I decided to clean it up and install some shelves. It was a fun weekend project and for the low $20 cost of supplies (some cheap wood, some finishing nails and some contact paper) it made a huge difference in our kitchen and created some fantastic new storage for my wife and I to work with...

Step 1: Ironing Board Cabinet Converted Into Shelving

The first step was to vacuum and clean out the dusty ironing board cabinet and take some measurements to determine how many shelves to install and what supplies I would need to purchase at the hardware store.

I determined I would add 5 new shelves which were just like the one shelve the cabinet already had. My shelves would need to be 3-1/2" x 12" and with the goal of keeping this project quick and easy I planned to mount the new shelves on a simple three-sided platform consisting of short lengths of 3/4" square dowels mounted into the cabinet walls.

Finally, I decided I would install some contact paper on the wood surfaces of the cabinet and new shelves to create a nice look and feel.

Step 2: Ironing Board Cabinet Converted Into Shelving

Home from the hardware store: I measured, cut and sanded the wood I purchased before installing the contact paper into the existing cabinet space.

Step 3: Ironing Board Cabinet Converted Into Shelving

Next I held the new shelves where I wanted them to be installed, made sure they were level and traced their bottom edges--marking the back and side walls of the cabinet. The white contact paper made these lines easy to see.

Once that was done, I nailed the dowel supports into the cabinet using the finishing nails--being careful align their top edges up perfectly with the lines.

Then, I moved from bottom to top, installing the shelves by tacking them into each of the dowel supports with a finishing nail.

The final step was installing the contact paper on each of my new shelves.

Done! I was pretty happy with the final result. :)