Floating Shelves Add Organization to a Room

Storage and shelving space is at a premium in most people’s homes and sometimes it’s difficult to add some organization to a room.  One solution is to build shelves that are meant to be seen and become part of the home’s décor, such as a floating shelf. Floating shelves are open shelves that appear to just hang on the wall– in other words, they float. While a floating shelf can’t hold a lot of weight, they do offer a practical place to store light weight objects or decorations and they can provide some organization to a small room. Here’s how you can build some floating shelves in your home.

Locating your floating shelve

• Start by determining approximatley where you want to position your floating shelves , then locate the underlying wall studs. Depending on how long you want to make your floating shelf, you will need to find at least two studs to hold up your new shelf After finding the studs, mark their location with a light vertical line.

Build your Shelving Unit

• Create a three sided box using 2 pieces of ½” MDF shelving sandwiching lengths of 1” X 2” lumber laid on their side. Screw the top and bottom pieces of shelving into the 1” X 2”’s, along the front and down each side, leaving the back open.

Installing your shelf

• Measure and cut a piece of 1” X 2” lumber 1 ½” shorter than your shelf length then install it on to the wall directly into the studs using 1 ½” screws. This will be the cleat that provides the support for your floating shelf.
• Use pieces of masking tape or painters tape to help visualize the location of your shelves, then mark the positions on the already marked stud lines to show the cleat position. Be sure they are level before screwing the cleat into the studs.
• Slip the open back side of your shelving box over the cleat and fasten it in place by installing screws vertically down from the top as well as up from the bottom into the cleat.
• Countersink and fill the screw holes, use wood putty to fill in the gaps between the shelving pieces and the 1” X 2” lumber and your shelf is ready for finishing or painting to match your décor. You may find it easier to paint and finish your shelf unit before you install it onto the cleat. However, you will still need to countersink and fill the screws holding the shelf onto the cleat to get them out of sight
  

While standard shelves are 36” in width, if you want your shelves to be longer or shorter it’s very easy to modify the lengths of the components and create you own “custom” shelves. A word of caution, if you are building a shelf longer than 36”, you may want to install cross braces between the shelving boards to provide extra strength.

Murray Anderson is a veteran freelancer whose work has been appeared in books, newspapers and newsletters as well as on numerous web sites in both the United States and Canada. He writes on a wide range of topics including home, consumer, and personal subjects as well as general business and Marketing specific topics.