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50 Easy DIY Hanging And Floating Wall Shelves On A Budget

DIY floating shelves are one of the easiest projects you can tackle, even with limited DIY skills. It's also the reason why I created a full 4-sided frame rather than just installing the cleats and middle supports through the shelf; other floating shelf tutorials do not include the 4th piece in the front, which makes sense to me, but I found that it really came in handy for keeping the middle pieces secure, level, and ultimately supporting the plywood on top.

diy project

Each shelf support is made up of three pieces, a mounting plate which attaches to the wall, a set screw which screws into the mounting plate, and a rod that screws onto the set screw. Slip the shelf onto the cleat and tight to the wall. Once the brackets are in place on the wall, simply slide the stained shelves in place.

Then, cut your three pieces at 10 ½” long. Whatever the material of the wall, it is always preferable to hang the shelves to a wall stud in order to get the best supportive base for the shelves. Drive 1¼-inch wood screws through the longer 1×2 pieces and into the ends of the shorter 1×2 pieces to hold the pieces in place.

As the bracket is screwed up to the wall sometimes it pulls the support poles slightly off square so you may find that you need to pull the poles in slightly to get the ends to slot into the holes on the back of the shelf. These walnut floating shelves will look magnificent in a small bathroom, and they will provide you with some much-needed space for storage.

Using the cut list above, cut the 1 x 2 front and side pieces to length. I love it when a modernly styled room has a couple of rustic accents added to it. These Reclaimed Wood Floating Shelves are a great example of that, especially against the otherwise clean and sharp finishes shown in this instance.

To get the DIY floating shelves down to the final size of 4″ thick I used a combination of my planer and jointer Running the boards through the planer at 5” plus is slightly terrifying with such a short piece. They're called floating shelves because they appear to float on the wall without supports.

This post focuses on a broad overview of how you build the shelves, and then you can apply that using any wood, length, height, etc. Then set the plywood pieces down into the rabbets and secure with glue and nails. You'll use the wider planks as the top and bottom of the floating shelf and the skinnier pieces as the front and back.