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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

Gallery

Comments

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They look like very good addition to tjat kitchen
 

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Thanks, Ivan!
 

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That turned out great Tooch. Using your own imagination has benefits over store bought ideas. I had a similar idea with a 4'' dead space in our kitchen and turned it into a breadboard and pepermill holder instead of a blank space board. And I agree, they want to charge you a lot for touch up stain.
 

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Real nice looking shelves, Mike…nice clean design!!

Cheers, Jim
 

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Thanks Dave, seems like they want to charge you a lot for everything kitchen related.

Thanks for the nice comment, Jim, I was trying to match the clean style of the doors.
 

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Neccessity and $ are always great incentives! Looks like you made your window a little too small? :)
 

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Great job.

They look terrific.
 

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Very nice Tooch! Nothing like have more shelf space and completed kitchen. Maybe that cabinet company should hire you!
Nice work and nice saving too!
 

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That looks awesome. Great job buddy
 

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They certainly look good and well worth the effort.

No doubt he original ones had gold feature screws in the construction somewhere!
I cannot work out where the concept drawing showing the face piece frame fits into the final assembly.
Ignore the above I just worked it out …its the front section! hence "Face" WAD!
 

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Tooch, I like the clean design and the proportions of the shelves. Nice work. It is difficult to make stuff fit well in the real world of unsquare walls.
 
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