There are a lot of tutorials for building your own nail polish rack out there. When my collection grew large enough that I wanted to see all my colors displayed (ostensibly so I didn’t buy more of the same, but let’s be honest, I’ll keep buying blues and neutrals), I went searching for polish racks. To buy the acrylic racks salons have is expensive. I brought up the idea of building my own, following all the great tutorials out there, but my mother, who thinks I’m less DIY than I really am, came up with a different solution.

Polish rack!

I was so surprised my mom had this brainstorm, since I fully expected her to roll her eyes at my need for a display rack. We went to Bed Bath & Beyond together where she found this utensil rack for about $13 (purchase here).

I probably should have vacuumed before taking pictures on my carpet.

I wired it up with picture hanging wire.

A loop at the center helps to balance the rack and gives it more support.

I fed the picture wire through the holes on the rack several times before looping it around itself to finish it off.

I wired it at the first “shelf” for better support, but I had to make sure it was the right way up. On the dividing pieces, the heavy wire frame projected up on one side. I wanted that side up because the frame would act as a lip to keep my polishes from falling off. The bottom shelf didn’t have that lip, so I applied some decorative duct tape to help hold those bottles, although when I attached them to the wall, I also drove some nails at the bottom of the frame that help hold it at an angle to keep the bottles balanced.

Wiring it “the right way up” uses the frame itself as a lip to hold the polish bottles.

I put the first one up with Command Strips hooks, which didn’t stick well on my textured wall. The whole thing, loaded with polish bottles, fell over, and several shattered on my beige carpet. Ugh. Still fixing that. But for round two, I used picture hangers and gorilla hooks rated for 40 pounds, and so far they’ve stayed up fine.

I have too many polishes. There’s another whole rack below the orange/greens. All blues, lol.

This ended up not being incredibly cost effective, since each rack was $13 and I had five of them. But they were quicker to build than it would have been to work from scratch with wood trim or foam board, and if you only need one or two, I think it’s a good solution to storage issues. Mine are hung in a closet, which is a nice, cool, dark place so the polishes won’t be affected by sunlight over time, and any spills like my original disaster aren’t immediately visible. I have a little plastic bin filled with acetone, files, brushes, and other manicure equipment that I keep at the table where I do my manicures (which is right now the kitchen, but when I move some furniture around it’ll be in my guest bedroom). So when I get inspired to do my nails, I can see all my colors at once, and I only have to carry the bottles to where I’m working instead of gathering manicure tools from all over the house. I’m kind of loving it; I feel mega-organized.

What do you all think? How have you solved your polish storage problems?