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DIY: Wood Shelves + Brackets

Two blog posts and it’s still January… impressive. One of my goals / hopes for the year is to share and showcase more of our brick ranch fixer upper projects + in-progress and completed client projects… there’s always so much to show you!

Onto today’s DIY… I shared a picture on instagram the other day of the finished living room. The space has been complete (well nothing is ever done as I’m always moving, adding, or removing little details) for about 6 months and earlier last year, I finally decided what to do with the nook to the right of the fireplace.

We needed more shelf space to display books and accessories, so shelves were the ideal solution for the setback wall space. I originally envisioned floating wood shelves, but I was worried about the length of the shelf and the potential of them bowing + floating shelves seemed very involved to build, so I decided on using shelves with simple brackets.

Here’s the before…

1 / To start, I removed everything in the space. Then I figured out the number of shelves + the heights. 1

> I wanted the one shelf to align with the top of the fireplace mantel, so I determined the shelf heights starting from that point.

2 / BRACKETS – Using a measuring tape, I determined the bracket locations and made marks for the screws. Then with a drill, I installed toggle anchors and screwed the brackets in to the wall.

This is closeup of the finished brackets (I used regular screws and still have to paint the screw paints black).

3 / SHELVES – For the shelves, I chose 2×12 – I like the thicker look of the shelf.

When I purchased the wood at Lowes, I had them cut the boards to the desired length (about 1/2″ less than the exact wall length so there was some wiggle room to install the shelves in place).

4 / STAIN – For the stain, I used special walnut, which is the perfect medium brown. I poured a small amount on the wood shelf and spread it out using a cloth. I covered the entire board (all sides) with the stain. In about 10 minutes all 4 boards were stained. The process is really easy.

This is a closeup of the finished shelf in place…

5 / INSTALL – With the brackets in place and the shelves stained, the project was almost complete. The last step was to set the shelves in place. The shelves were set on to the brackets and screwed in place to the underside of the wood.

Done! This project – start to finish – took about one hour and was fairly easy to execute. The important part is to ensure the proper anchors + screws are used so the brackets are secure!

This is the finished result…

Definitely a big change from when we moved in and the space looked like this…

And now to this…

Next up is sharing pictures of the entire finished room… Maybe another post for January?!?