Beginner Floating Shelf Tutorial

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I had this very boring water closet that I thought would be a great starting point for my first official DIY project. I had seen someone put up floating shelves once so I was confident I could do it too!

They are pretty straight forward, and I don’t think I did too bad for my first REAL project! I had used the miter saw before to build a step stool, but nothing ATTACHED to the house.

I started with 1x2s that I put on the back and side walls using the most awesome drywall anchors they make and I made sure they were level, so that the soon to be shelf would be level.

You’re basically making a frame for the plywood to sit on, to be the floating shelf.

I did a test fit, and while it wasn’t perfect, it was pretty close. I didn’t have a miter saw yet so I just used a circular saw. After test fitting the shelf to double check the cuts I had made, I took it outside and stained everything. I first used Golden Oak Stain by Minwax, and then topped it with Dark Walnut by Varathane as a second coat of stain to get just the color I was looking for.

Once it was stained I brought them back in and attached the bottoms with my 18 gauge nail gun. The nail gun was easy to use and made this part of the project very quick and simple!

Once the bottoms were in I added supports to the centers of the shelves so they wouldn’t bow when I added decor. Then I installed the tops and secured everything in place with the nail gun.

The fronts are just 1×3 common board. before I attached them I marked where the center supports were so I knew where to shoot some nails in.

Here’s a quick video so you can see everything in motion.

I think they turned out pretty great! Excuse the terrible quality picture, this was before I upgraded my iPhone and this space had NO natural lighting.

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Next up, a wood slat wall because I saw it on Pinterest!