How to Make and Install Floating Shelves for the Dining Room

Ron pulls off the highway about 10 miles South of Tucson in the desert community of Green Valley. It was to this picturesque spot that Charlene White had transplanted herself from the Midwest. Her stylish home is surrounded by beautiful vistas, but there was one view that was a bit barren, her kitchen wall. Ron came up with an off the wall idea that is as good-looking as it is practical… shelves without brackets. They are perfect for displaying her pottery and art collection!

Click here for a list of what you will need in order to complete this project.

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1. Design shelving system:

• Charlene was hoping that Ron would come up with a shelf design that had an architectural look; more like the shelves were a part of the wall.

• The idea was to create shelves that had clean visual lines and no visible supports.

• To do that they would need to build the shelves like hollow boxes with open backs. They would then attach cleats to the wall and attach the shelves onto the cleats.

2. Determine layout:

• The first step was to determine the shelf layout on the wall. For this they used painter's masking tape and experimented with varying lengths and locations for each shelf.

• Charlene wanted a free form look. Ron admitted after they had decided on the layout, that it was not as easy as he thought it might be to achieve this look.

• They designated each shelf with a letter then measured and recorded its length to create a cutting list.

• They would use this cutting list to cut all the different pieces they would need to build the shelves.

• The next decision was to determine how deep these shelves should be. Ron used a few pieces of the pottery that Charlene would display to help determine an appropriate depth.

• A typical piece would require at least seven inches but Charlene thought it would be nice to have a little more depth. Ron said the maximum depth was ten inches for this type of connection and Charlene chose to go with the widest possible dimension.

3. Cut wood:

• With length and depth decided, they were ready to begin cutting the tops and bottoms of the shelves.

• Charlene used a table saw to cut the ¼ inch thick, large plywood sheets into ten-inch wide strips.

• They used the chop saw, or miter saw, to cut the strips to the proper length for each shelf.

• 1 x 2 inch wood strips were used to give the shelves thickness and create the hollow interior they needed to make the attachment to the wall. The next step was to cut these strips to the correct length.

4. Assembly:

• The first step in building the hollow box shelf was to glue the thin plywood skin to the strip that would form the front edge of the shelf.

• Ron first applied the glue to the wood strips.