Project Information
These shelves were part of our original new kitchen design, but I am just now getting them done (only a year later, not bad!). When we were designing the kitchen, the guy helping us said that the floating shelves offered thorough the cabinet company were 36" long, couldn't be cut, and were roughly $200/piece. Well that was cause enough for me to skip buying them and dedicate a little time and thinking to make something.
My concept was pretty simple: Make a frame and anchor it into the wall stud and the side of the cabinet, then put plywood on top and bottom and a face piece wrapping around the edge. The most difficult part of the part of the build was something that I didn't consider until I went to mount the frames, and that was the walls aren't completely flat. So anywho, in order to preserve a 90 degree outside corner (for sake of the 45 miters) I had to adjust each of the frames and build them individually with different measurements for each piece. ugh. Picture 6 shows the bones of each shelf.
The shelves on the left of the sink ar 12"x24" long, and on the right of the sink the shelves are 12"x26" long. I wanted to keep the spacing even between the shelves and window (6" on each side) but the way the rest of the cabinets came together the distance was slightly off from one side to the other, so I made the proper adjustment.
The panels are maple plywood, and the face "frames" are soft maple which matched the rest of the cabinets. I ordered a pint of touch up stain from the manufacturer so the color would match perfectly. a PINT of stain cost $30, ouch! but since we had some difficulties with other things the sales associate knocked the price down to $15. All in all I have about $65 into these sehlves, which sure beats $800, and most importantly my better half has a place to put all of her plants, stones, and various knick-knacks.
Here's a rough sketch diagram of the construction:
Thanks for looking, comments welcome and questions answered
My concept was pretty simple: Make a frame and anchor it into the wall stud and the side of the cabinet, then put plywood on top and bottom and a face piece wrapping around the edge. The most difficult part of the part of the build was something that I didn't consider until I went to mount the frames, and that was the walls aren't completely flat. So anywho, in order to preserve a 90 degree outside corner (for sake of the 45 miters) I had to adjust each of the frames and build them individually with different measurements for each piece. ugh. Picture 6 shows the bones of each shelf.
The shelves on the left of the sink ar 12"x24" long, and on the right of the sink the shelves are 12"x26" long. I wanted to keep the spacing even between the shelves and window (6" on each side) but the way the rest of the cabinets came together the distance was slightly off from one side to the other, so I made the proper adjustment.
The panels are maple plywood, and the face "frames" are soft maple which matched the rest of the cabinets. I ordered a pint of touch up stain from the manufacturer so the color would match perfectly. a PINT of stain cost $30, ouch! but since we had some difficulties with other things the sales associate knocked the price down to $15. All in all I have about $65 into these sehlves, which sure beats $800, and most importantly my better half has a place to put all of her plants, stones, and various knick-knacks.
Here's a rough sketch diagram of the construction:
Thanks for looking, comments welcome and questions answered