We’ve had some bare spots on our living room and dining room walls that I thought needed some shelves. I’ve seen some awesome wooden shelves you can buy and install yourself, but everything I’ve seen and liked is pretty pricey. Charlie’s dad is always asking us if he can help with any house projects, so I thought this would be the perfect project for him to help with. Why not DIY our own shelves?! He had all the wood we needed, so we didn’t have to buy that, but when we first decided we wanted to do this we did look at wood at Lowe’s and found some very affordable pieces. You could do three shelves with one big piece of wood for under $10! If you’re like us and already have the wood, all you’ll need is some stain (we used Minwax Polyshades in Bombay Mahogany). You can get it at Lowe’s for about $12. And you’ll also need 2 corner brackets for each shelf. We used these ones here from Lowe’s as well for $3.48 for a pack of 4. We ended up needing one more pack for a third shelf, but if you’re doing 2 shelves, this pack is perfect for you. I also found some here for a pack of 40! This is an awesome deal. So you’re really paying less than $10 per shelf! Seriously such an awesome price for something you’re making yourself and know is good quality.
Here’s the whole process of our DIY shelves…
The wood we used is 24 inches long, with a 1.5 in piece in the front to act as a guard for what’s on the shelf. Definitely not necessary but we thought it added a nice touch.
Here is a shelf with one coat of the stain on it…we used two coats and it turned out perfect.
And here is the stain we used…I’ve been loving the Minwax 2 in one Polyshades. It has the stain AND poly all in one step which is a big time saver.
Now for the fun part! 🙂 Getting ready to hang the shelves once they’re dry. I let ours sit for a little over 24 hours after staining. We placed the brackets about 4 inches into the shelves and marked with a pencil where the holes should go. We then pre-drilled on each side…
And then took the brackets again to measure on the walls where they should go…
Ok, now this was where it was a little tough. It actually took both of us to get these onto the walls…Because the brackets are going into the wall and onto the bottom of the shelf, we wanted the brackets to be on the actual wall first. So we drilled the brackets into the walls…and then screwed the shelf on from the bottom up. Since we pre-drilled the holes onto the bottom of the shelves, it was easy to do, I just had to hold the shelf in place while Charlie screwed everything together.
Here’s what it looks like from the bottom…
And here it is from the side…
Now you’re probably wondering, how is this “floating”? Well, I thought the corner brackets would be a lot sturdier for our 100 year old walls, so to make it look floating, we just place frames and such in front of each bracket, so from a distance people have no idea what is holding the shelf in place.
See what I mean? 🙂
These definitely changed up the entire look of our living room and dining room and we love them! We’re already looking for more places to put these 🙂 I think they would be the perfect touch to our guest room as well!
If you create this project, please let me know! I’d love to see how yours turn out!
Like this project? Yay! Pin it for later using the photo below 🙂
