Floating Shelves (or Building Stuff Without Thinking it Through)

There was this nice empty wall in the kitchen, nothing on it but a traditional plate rail and a calendar, and there was a kitchen drawer in which all the spices were jammed and one bag had spilled all over. It seemed like an easy task: build a couple of floating shelves, mount them on the wall and line up the spices in jars.

So I built 4 shelves, 2 with a depth of 3”, 2 with a depth of 6”, both with a lip along the front. They got stained a nice deep tone and we headed off to get mounting brackets, those fun little keyhole shaped metal pieces that are sold with every floating shelf out there. Apparently they are not sold separately. Anywhere. So off to Lee Valley we went to get another style of bracket…that was discontinued. Finally found some brackets, got the shelves up and they look pretty good.

At the same time I built a simple box with mitre corners to be installed above the toilet in the new bathroom. There was a lot of empty space and the room needed a place that wasn’t the sink for small items. The stain matches the vanity and it gives some warmth to the room.

And now we know: ensure the hardware you are planning to use is available before you build the item