A Little More DIY: Floating Shelves Edition

So you may remember my adventures with the

MIRRORED WINDOW FRAME

Well, I couldn't just have this gorgeous yellow frame and nowhere to put it!  Therefore, in came the

FLOATING SHELVES

If I am going to be completely accurate I should tell you that the shelves idea came first, but the frame itself was completed before the shelves. 

First, I knew that we were going to redo the laundry room this summer.  I also knew that I had a lot of vases and glass dishes in there that were taking up storage space and not living up to their potential.  They needed to be on display! 

Then, I was tired of the picture display that we had up on the wall parallel to the laundry room.  It also serves as kind of a hallway.  It was dark and I was simply over it.  Under the pictures lives my IKEA cubby system. 

I had 2 problems and 1 easy solution.  I needed shelves.  So I headed over to my very favorite website (pinterest) and typed in shelves.  This lead me directly to a new (to me) love of a blog called YoungHouseLove. 

Lo and behold, they had built their very own floating shelves AND had a tutorial telling me how easy it would be to make them!  I was sold. 

After going on vacation, talking about the floating shelves nonstop, buying MIRRORED WINDOW FRAME, and convincing Lukie that this was something that was not only fun but also functional we got started. 

I had pictured them to be all glass and white, but decided that a little bit of color in appropriate places would also be quite fun!

Alicia, Cameron and I headed over to the HD to buy some plywood.  Yep, I bought plywood.  We looked very professional, or should I say helpless??  I ask this because very soon into our trip a nice man asked us if we needed any help.  He probably regretted it almost immediately because I needed a lot of it.  He helped us pick out our wood AND he cut it for us!  I wrote a nice note to his manager about him and I hope he was recognized for it.

Cameron wanted to be scared of the saw noises but I assured him it was okay so he was cool with it. 

We purchased our merchandise, fit it very strategically (and barely but still legally) into the car to take home and get to work.

We needed to build a frame and 2 boxes to act as the shelves and fit over the frames. 

Starting with the frames, we sanded the 1x2 wood pieces until they were smooth (remember they were already cut) and drilled them together.  This is what we got (twice)!



For some reason I can't get this picture to go vertically!  So apparently it is an actual floating shelf!

Then came the actual shelves.  These needed to be built, sanded, wood filler-ed, and painted.  When I say sanded I mean it.  I wanted for them to be really smooth and box-like so I sanded enough wood to open my own desert.  Seriously, I could have planted a cactus afterwards.

I made them into a frame so it was a rectangular prism with one opened side (this would be the side that goes on the wall).  Here's what I got!

Once all of the shelves were built, it was time to mount them onto the wall.  This was where our special screws came in!  That gave us this: 

We put the frames on first and made sure they were aligned and in the studs.  Once those were sturdy we got to do my favorite part...  We got to slide the shell of the shelf onto the frame!  It was so gratifying to slide them right on!

When it was all said and done here's what we had...

Then I got to decorate!  I could spend hours arranging and rearranging the items until I think they look nice (OCD much?). 

Do you see it?  It shines like the sun!  Right there is the

MIRRORED WINDOW FRAME

To me, it adds a refreshing punch of color.  It is precisely what I wanted it to be!  I do feel that there needs to be some color popping out of the vase on the right. 

These were built in July.  Even since putting them up I have found other items around the house which added to the shelves and took some rearranging.

Here is an updated shot:  

  I got the punch of color that I was looking for, added the champagne glass vase from our wedding candy buffet to the mix, and tossed in the quaint clock that we bought in England.    Now I love it!

I have a couple of disclaimers:

1.  If you are looking to add your very own floating shelves to your house, please follow the tutorial here, not just mine.  It's way more specific.

2.  I don't know how much weight these shelves can hold, so if you build some, add items at your own risk.  Me?  I like to be daring apparently and add ALL glass to my shelves.  :)

3.  At the end of the day, this entire look cost me under $70.  That's for the wood, wood filler, sand paper, paint, MIRRORED WINDOW FRAME, and nails/screws.  Not too shabby if you ask me!