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How to Make Floating Shelves

Are you wondering how to make floating shelves? Well, it's easy; all you need to do is decide the right spot first and then fix them on to have the decorative items grace the wall...
Mamta Mule
Floating shelves are commonly seen in many houses and are used for various purposes. These are basically shelves attached to the wall in a way that the support is not visible, hence they appear as if they are floating. Once you decide on the location of floating shelves, the rest is not a difficult task to perform.

Procedure to Make Floating Shelves

Step 1

Take wooden boards of the desired type. The one used for support has to be two inches thick and the one used for shelf can be 3/4-1 inch thick. Decide the location of the floating shelves. Decide the number of shelves you want and accordingly arrange them to have a classic floating shelf design. Mark the locations.

Step 2

Now decide the size of floating shelves, how much broad and how much long you want them. This completely depends on your requirements. Let us take our shelf to be 12 inches broad and 30 inches long. Also, decide the height at which it is to be placed on the wall. This is the place where you need to fix its supports.

Step 3

If you are wondering how to make floating shelf brackets, which are not visible, here's the procedure. Mark the position. Take 2"x2" wood that is as long as the width of the shelf, that is 30 inches in this case.
Fix this on the wall using 5-7, 3" or longer wood screws. You need to place it below the marking of the floating shelf, align its border with the lower border of the shelf marking. This forms the support for the shelf.

Step 4

Now, take a 12 inch wide and 30 inches long wood which is of 1 inch thickness. Place this on the 2"x2" wood fixed in step 3, touching the wall. Now, fix this using 5-7 screws from the top of the shelf perpendicular to the 2"x2" wood on the wall.
The floating shelf is ready. Fix other shelves in the same way. Well, the procedure is easy, but what's important is that you place them right and enhance your home decor.

Placement
There are a number of options in terms of placement and overall design of floating shelves. First, consider the wall to fix these. Depending on the size of the wall, decide the shelf length. When fixing 2 or more long shelves, fix them one below the other. Here is one of the great large wall decorating ideas.
Use mixed sized shelves and place them in three or four layers, keeping enough space between two. You can place small shelves in a stair pattern. While fixing more than one shelf, you need to consider height of the items that will be placed on it.
Remember, placing a large item on the topmost shelf won't look much good and also a smaller item placed on it won't be visible! For a perfect wall decoration, you need to gather the things to be placed first and then decide the shelf sizes and design accordingly. This is a smarter way than vice versa.
One of the elegant wall decorating ideas is to have the shelves in a color contrast to that of the wall. You can opt for white shelves on a red wall. These are sure to look beautiful. Make sure you do not complicate the design and have enough light falling on these shelves.
Once you know how to make floating shelves and place them correctly, you can give an amazing look to the wall.
Apart from decoration, these are best to place books in a study room, photo frames in the bedroom and many such useful things. Just be creative and use these simple floating shelves to beautify your walls.