I’d figured out how to make rounded corner shelves. Cheaply, and, here’s the part that had me giving myself a big hearty pat on my own back, without any need of fancy power tools. 

Corner shelves are a terrific way to make efficient use of those frequently neglected little nooks where two walls meet. The weekend before I’d moseyed on over to Home Depot, intending to purchase a set of corner shelves for my home office, a first step towards getting my horrifically cluttered workspace under some semblance of control. To my dismay, I discovered that a basic corner shelf, purchased at Home Depot, will run you a whopping $18 or so. Now normally, I’m a big fan of just doing things myself, but here’s the tricky thing about corner shelves: since they look best when they’re rounded – a little rectangular board stuck into a corner looks rather inelegant – they’re virtually impossible to make without the aid of a jigsaw (a power saw that’s specifically intended to cut curves). Or so most do-it-yourself home improvement guides would have you believe.

Unless you do it this way. Buy a 24" round board – the particle board variety can be found for under $4 at Home Depot – and cut it into quarters. That’s it: four instant rounded corner shelves, which you can then paint in whatever color floats your boat. Easy, no? And at less than $1 per shelf (not including brackets and screws), incredibly affordable to boot. Check out our step-by-step illustrated instructions …