Home Projects & Repair

Tools:

• Scroll Saw
• Drill
• Screw Driver
• Level

Materials:

• Shelf: $5-10
• Brackets: $10-15
• Screws

Perhaps one of the best home improvements you can make is to add shelving to a room. Not only does it make the room look better, but it also adds more functionality. If you have lots of books or trinkets and a spare wall, then a shelf might be a nice addition to your room.

The first thing you will need to decide is where you want the shelf to go and how big you want it to be. Several things to take into consideration are what its function is to be and where on the wall it needs to be placed. The length should generally not be more than a few feet, or shorter than a couple feet. Try placing something on the wall to get a feel for how it will look when it is placed, you may be surprised. When determining the height of the shelf you may not want it to be low enough that small children will be able to grab onto the shelf or people hitting their heads on it. Also, make sure that it is not so high that you can’t reach it without getting something to stand on.

Once you have determined the requirements head to the hardware store and look for a shelf and some brackets. There are packages available with precut shelves and brackets. These are often sufficient and much easier to work with since the wood has already been treated and generally has a nicely worked edge on it. If you are looking for something else, you will generally find brackets and shelves sold seperately. If you go this route you will want to make sure that you have enough brackets to support the shelf. A general rule is one bracket for every 3 or 4 feet. More than this and it will look funny, any less and you will end up with a sagging shelf.

Now that you have your shelf and brackets you will need to find the studs in the wall. The placement of the shelf will be somewhat limited to the placement of the studs. There are several techniques to finding studs. An easy way to locate them is to simply knock on the wall and listened to the sound. Hollow sounds indicate there is nothing there, more dull sounds are a good indication of a stud. Knock around a little listening carefully to locate the studs. Once you have found one stud, you may want to pound a small nail into the wall to make sure that it is really a stud. Once a stud has been found it is easy to find another as they are generally placed evenly apart.

The next step is to attach the brackets. You will want to install the brackets towards the ends of the shelfs, if you have three you will want to have it centered in between the two ends. Pull out your level and pencil in a line where the shelf is to go. Then, taking into consideration the thickness of the shelves place the brackets along the line on studs and mark where the screws are to go. Once marked use a drill bit slightly smaller than your screws to drill the holes. This will make screwing them in much easier. Once drilling is complete, screw the brackets onto the wall.

All that is left is to attach the shelf to the bracket. Make sure that the screws you are using will not go through the shelf completely. That would be rather unfortunate.