Stain Can Rack - beautiful idea with ugly wood

A plethora of finishing products has accumulated at the back of my workbench. I decided to hang them on the wall, and so built this project on-the-fly, without preparing a plan first.
I simply marked the heights and widths of various cans on the side of a board, getting a feel for a comfortable distance between the top of a can and the bottom of the next shelf up; then I scroll-sawed the profile of the sides into scrap 1×6 pine.
Then I cut a dado for the back (scrap 1/4 ply).

My original idea was to run a safety dowel across the front of each bay to prevent accidents, but I decided instead to cut the shelf dadoes at a 3-degree decline. Now that it’s done, I think that was a great idea, but if I ever drop a can, I have room to add dowels too.

The bottom shelf is 1/2” ply, the others are 1/4”; but as you can see in the dry-fit pictures, they bowed under weight, so I stiffened each with another 1/4” strip beneath.

With a french cleat, I hung the finished rack on the only bare piece of wall I have left. I have not applied a finish yet.

Now that this is done, I want to make one as a display rack for the house, but with a few refinements. First, I will use stopped dadoes everywhere. Second, the shelves will be hardwood instead of ply, I think. Third, the back of each shelf should be angled 3 degrees to give a good glue joint with the back panel. (As it is, I just filled the gap with glue. It’s all out of sight anyway.) With stopped dadoes, I could round over the inside and outside edges of the sides, and the front edges of the shelves, too.

-- I'd rather be a hammer than a nail