Building Shelves in the Family Room

It’s been awhile since we’ve posted any home improvement things, thanks largely to almost two full months of holiday posts, but no worries- we’re back in business today with a DIY project that is now hanging in our Family Room. Let’s take a look at where we left off with this room… back when we added new paint!:

But let’s back up even further… when we bought the house, we had white walls and tan carpeting:

And then we painted a yellow-ish, cream:

And added new curtains and four square frames to one side of the fireplace:

Before taking everything down to paint it a blue/gray (Cumulus by Behr):

As we thought about what should go back onto the walls after the paint job, we had a chance to evaluate (or re-evaluate) our framing choices. When we first hung the four square frames, the thought was to hang a larger-scale piece of art on the other side to give the room some balance. As we thought about it, though, it didn’t feel quite right, especially since we loved the circle mirror we had hung right in the middle. Like maybe having the four square, followed by the circle mirror, followed by another hanging would be too much and feel awkward.

But what to put instead? Sandwich the mirror with two large hangings? Add another four square to the other side? Leave both sides blank? Something I had been craving were some more places to display things, more “ledges” to decorate. And thus, the idea of shelves was born. Another blank canvas to create on, a place to hold our “treasures”, and a way to incorporate 2D and 3D art… perfect.

We decided on four (long-ish) shelves and hunted for reasonably priced ones, to no avail. It seemed that everything we found was in the $25-50 per shelf neighborhood and most didn’t have the size or sturdiness we were looking for. Yikes. So, I looked into the DIY option and was pleasantly surprised that we could build our own for just over $10 a pop! Here’s how it all went down.

Our shelves are roughly 1″ thick, 10″ deep, and 48″ long. They are each supported with two wooden brackets that are secured to the wall. To make this, we used no large power tools (only a drill)- so if you don’t own an extensive power saw collection (neither do we!), you’re in luck. You can definitely do this project with just the basics.

You’ll Need:

• Four boards of the sizes you want (again, ours were 1″x 10″x 48″). I got ours for $2 each at Home Depot, already cut. Look for the “imperfect” pile- it’s cheaper and paint covers a multitude of sins, so this is a good way to save money!
• Eight brackets (or more, depending on the length of your shelves). We got ours from Ikea for $5 each (Home Depot has them too, but they were more expensive). Depending on what you’ll be storing on your shelves, you may want to go with super heavy duty brackets. These from Ikea have worked just fine for us and we’ve had our shelves up for almost six months now- no casualties so far. 🙂
• White Paint (or another color, or stain!). We used Ultra White by Behr in a Semi Gloss finish.
• Drill
• Level and Pencil
• Wood Screws (I think we used 1/2″ for attaching the brackets to the boards and 1 1/2″ for attaching the shelves to the wall)
• Molly Bolts
• Stud Finder
• Hammer

Alrighty, you’re all set to get building. Let’s rock and roll with the step-by-step breakdown…

Step 1: Sand and Paint all of your pieces. This probably takes the most time, but it’s the easy stuff. The hardest part is being patient enough to wait for the paint to dry!

Step 2: Decide where you want to hang your shelves. Ours sit about 54″ from the floor (we have 8′ ceilings) and are about 15″ apart. To find this, I used a few tricks. First, measure out where you think you want your shelves to sit and use some painter’s tape to create a mock version of the real thing. The tape will give you a good visual so you can stand back and evaluate without having to make any holes in the wall or giving your assistant sore arms from holding heavy shelves up in the air while you look. 🙂

The other thing that helped me land on the final look was to do a decorating “run-through”. I went around the house and grabbed a few things that I thought I’d potentially want to display on the shelves after they were installed. You’ll want to gather an assortment of items of varying sizes and heights. Hold them up between your tape to make sure that they fit, so you won’t have any disappointments when the real shelves are up. There were a few frames I knew I’d want to perch on the shelves and using this method showed me that my original measurements left too small a space for them, so I was able to course correct before the process really got going. It’s much easier to makes changes before you hang those shelves on the wall!

Step 3: Attach the bracket to the shelf. Ok, this one’s got sub-steps. Here we go:

3a. Measure how far from each end of the shelf you want your bracket to sit. As it ended up, the middle of the each bracket “nail hole” (I’m sure that’s a technical term) fell 6.5″ from the edge of end of the shelf. Mark that spot on your board.

Note: This particular bracket system is set up so that you insert the head of the screw into the wide opening and slide it down into the narrow to secure it in place. When you’re taking your measurements, make sure to measure using the screw’s final destination (the narrow end of the “nail hole”).

3b. Measure how far from the edge of the bracket to the middle of the nail hole. Using that measurement, measure that same distance from the edge of your shelf. Mark that spot.

3c. Using the two marks from 3a and 3b, find the point where they intersect and mark that finals spot. This will be where you screw in a wood screw (one of the smaller ones).

3d. Do steps 3a-3c on the other side of your board so you have the hardware in place to attach both brackets to the board.

3e. Attach the brackets to the board where your screws are.

Psst- See what I mean about the wide opening and sliding the screw down into the narrow part to secure it?

3f. Using a level, nudge the bottoms of each bracket into a straight position on the board and screw it in place with a smaller screw.

3g. Follow this same process for the other boards until you have four completed shelves! Don’t worry- it gets easier every time you do it.

Step 4: Attach your assembled shelves to the wall. We’ve got more sub-steps, so let’s do this…

4a. Measure the distance from the side edge of your shelf to the nail hole. This measurement should be the same one you get in Step 3a (ours was 6.5″). Using that measurement, mark that same distance on the wall, starting from the edge of your tape toward the middle. Make sure your tape is arranged exactly how you want the shelves to look, because it’s going to be your guide… double check it with your level! For ours, we assumed the top edge of the tape was representing the top edge of the shelf.

4b. Measure the distance from the top edge of the bracket/shelf combination to the nail hole on the bracket. Using the measurement, mark that same distance from the top edge of the tape toward the floor.

4c. Using the marks from 4a and 4b, find the point where they intersect and make a final mark on the wall. This is where you will hang a screw. Follow the same steps for the other side of the shelf.

4d. Using a stud finder, determine if your final marks fall on a stud or not. If so, use your drill to insert a wood screw (a longer one) through the wall into the stud, leaving enough sticking out to hang the shelf on.

4e. If there is no stud, use a drill with a drill bit about the same size as your molly bolt to make a hole in the wall where your mark is. Push a molly bolt through the hole, using a hammer to get it firmly in. Insert a screw into the molly bolt, leaving enough sticking out to hang the shelf on.

4f. Hang those shelves on your two screws!

4g. Secure the bottom of each bracket. Using a level, nudge the bottom half of each bracket into a straight position and secure it to the wall with a screw. As this is not the part of the shelf that is bearing the load, there is no need to use a molly bolt, even if there is no stud. Just screw it right into the wall with a smaller screw. 

Step 5: Take a step back and enjoy the view! You did it! Now go and fill those shelves with your most favorite things… job well done, friend. 🙂

Even without anything on them, our shelves added some character to the room. Because we painted them white, they don’t make the wall feel too heavy. And see those black screws peeking out at you? At first, I was going to paint them white, but after having lived with them for months, I actually like the edgy/industrial feel they give off. Kind of gives the look a little character. The only thing left is to fill them! Stay tuned for that… I’m working on a time lapse video to show you how I ended up styling them that should be ready some time early next week. Hooray!

Any shelves in your Family Room? Did they come when you bought/rented the place or did you install them yourself? I’d love to hear any tips you may have… in no way do I think that this method is the professional, fool-proof way, it’ s just how we went about it. I’m always interested to hear tips to do things better myself! So share away!

Update: You can see all the “styling the shelves” details here!