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DIY Floating Shelves - You can do it!
- kaceyhalehuffman
- Jan 21, 2023
- 4 min read
Process
Supports:
1. Determine what size you would like your shelves to be, height, width,etc. We usually
place 2” blue painters’ tape and live with it for a few days to make sure you like the size and placement. Once decided on size, mark off the center line and where studs are so that you know where to secure the wood framing.
2. Once you determine your shelf width, cut the 2x2” width of the shelves minus ½” to 1”
shorter than the desired width. If you’re using ¼” wood shelving then only reduce it 1/2”
and 1” for 1/2” thick sheet goods
3. Cut that length 2 times per shelf
4. Depending on your shelf depth, cut two pieces of 2x2” that are 6-8” long per 2’ of shelf
width. These will attach to the L brackets to hold your support front and back boards
together.
5. Assemble the supports with L brackets on both the front and back support 2x2” boards, with your short 6-8” support boards in between. This created a rectangle. Try to make these as square as possible, any lips or warp could make sliding on your mitered box shelves difficult if these aren’t flat on top/bottom/sides. We had to get creative with shims to make sure the frames were level.
6. Once you have these together, I sanded ours just to help ensure no rough edges when
sliding the boxes on the support.
7. Use the 1” flat wood bit to make a hole the depth of the lag bolt heads to avoid L bracket
interference and help get more of the stud for stability.
8. Mount your supports on the wall. Ensure you find the studs and tap into them or use a
drywall support screw to help attach the supports to the wall. Lag bolts are highly
recommended to avoid shelf issues in the future.
Shelves:
1. Cut your sheet goods down to roughly 1-2” bigger than the final shelf you want to assemble. Highly recommend asking your store to cut the boards down into rough sizes.
2. Needed, 2 matching top and bottom shelf pieces at the desired depth, 2 side pieces that are the same depth as the top/bottom and a single front piece the width of the top/bottom and the height of the side pieces. We did about 2.5” for our shelves on the outside edges. This allowed for about a 2” interior on the shelves, which easily slides on the 1.75” 2x2’s after sanding the supports.
3. Set your saws to 45 degrees. I used the table saw as much as possible as the miter saw
fluctuates as you move it forward and backwards creating slants depending on experience with the saw.
4. Cut 45 degree cuts on all edges except those that will back up to the wall.
5. Dry fit all the pieces together to ensure they are close to matching angles.
6. If all the pieces seem to fit, then apply liberal amounts of glue. Use a paint brush to even the glue out.
7. Push the pieces together and brad nail the edges together. Wipe up any excess glue quickly before it dries. It will cause more sanding or stain coloration differences when staining the wood.
8. Assembly: glue and brad nail all pieces to form a box with one side open. Let them stand for 24 hours in a warm environment to dry.
9. Test fit them to your wall supports, some people do this after assembling just the
top/front/bottom to ensure they can pull them apart while the glue is still wet.
10. Apply wood filler to any gaps, let dry for 24 hours, and then sand the entire shelf to smooth surfaces. It is not suggested to use a power tool for sanding corners.
11. Do not over sand, you can eat through all the wood veneer and then will be left with blank
surfaces.
12. Do not use the electric sander on the edges as it will take too much away very quickly. Sand on ½ of the sanders power 3 of 6 or 5 of 10 if it has settings to avoid over sanding.
13. Sand with 120 quickly and then 220 to the desired smoothness.
14. Check for cracks, apply more filler if needed, let dry, and sand any excess off.
15. Hand sand softly with 220 all edges and corners. It does NOT take much to take away the edge sharpness.
16. Use wood conditioner to prep for stain.
17. Stain the wood using a cloth. The specific order that I stained our shelves was 1) wood conditioner 2) one coat of early american 3) two coats of sunbleached.
Installation
1. Slide the completed floating shelf on the support. Use small screw to set into the supports or back support 2x2. Pre-drill the hole based on the screw size.
Materials:
- 2x2 boards, usually scrap boards at the end of an isle in home depot. Search to find the
straightest boards possible in the pile.
- Galvanized steal L brackets, we average 1 L bracket per foot of shelving support.
- 3” lag bolts for attaching supports to the studs and a bit to drill them in
- 2" nail gun and air compressor (screws can be used instead, but you will need a brad nailer
or clamps when assembling the shelves themselves.
- Orbital sander (or can be done with a lot of hand sanding, taking 10 times longer)
- Wood Clamps, always helpful to have if doing the project alone to hold things in place
- Table Saw (able to cut 45 degrees miter cuts)
- 1-2 sheets of ¼” of either pre-sanded or raw sheet goods (home depot usually only has 1-2
wood types that would look good, but a real lumber yard will have any option you prefer)
- Wood Stain/Paint (Early American and Sun Bleached)
- Sealant
- Wood shims if your wall is not level or perfectly flat
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