On the main wall in our living room, we added an easy DIY floating shelf with brackets. It was one of my favorite projects in our modern rustic living room makeover and is a major focal point in the room! This project was super easy and you only need one piece of wood and a set of brackets!
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In the past I’ve made a DIY floating shelf with no brackets for my office makeover. But this time I wanted to keep things more simple and use hidden, heavy duty steel brackets.
The advantages to using these steel brackets were that I could use them with solid wood (that’s 1.5″ thick) and they were easy to install and they are easy to remove (if needed in the future). Also, I love that they are hidden which provides a more modern floating shelf look!
Note, these brackets are about 1/8″ wider than a 2×8 (which is 1.5″ wide). However, once hung on the wall it’s really hard to tell unless you get up close. I decided to go with them because they are heavy duty and I only needed to buy two of them to support my longer shelf with heavier items. But, there are other floating shelf brackets available that are less wide if you prefer!
Update: After making shelves again for our new home, I would recommend better quality wall anchors than what comes with the brackets. Further, for really heavy and wider shelves (closer to 12″ wide), I would only use these brackets if you can secure them to the wall studs instead of drywall.
How to Make an Easy DIY floating shelf with brackets
Materials:
- (1) 2×8 @ 8ft
- Steel brackets
- Wood Stain (I used Provincial by Minwax)
Tools:
- Miter saw (optional)
- Drill
- 13/16″ Spade Drill Bit (at least 6″ long)*
- Studfinder
- Hammer
- Level
*Update: Originally, I used a 7/8″ drill bit which works, but after making these again, I used a 13/16″ drill bit instead which is just 1/16″ bigger than the 3/4″ bracket rod.
1. Cut wood to size
First, determine how long your floating shelf needs to be. I made my floating shelf 55″ long so it was about 2/3 the size of our couch since I was installing it over the couch. If you need to make it longer than that you may need to get more than one set of brackets.
Use a miter saw and cut your 2×8 to size. Or have your home improvement store make the cut for you.
2. Sand and stain floating shelf
At this point I found it was easiest to go ahead and sand and stain my floating shelf. I used Provincial by Minwax for my stain color. I skipped the top coat since I wanted a very matte look and didn’t need a sealant since the shelf is just for decor.
3. Hang brackets on the wall
First use a studfinder and determine where the wall studs are where you want to hang your floating shelf. Your brackets will need to be spread out enough to distribute the weight of your shelf.
Ideally you really want to hang the brackets on the wall studs. However, if the studs don’t fall where you need the brackets to be then you will need to drill into drywall and use heavy duty anchors with the brackets. We ended up having to drill into drywall.
Hold the first bracket up to wall where you want to install it. Make sure the bracket is level, then mark the holes with a pencil.
Drill pilot holes over the pencil marks. Then, tap the wall anchors into the holes with a hammer.
Next, install the bracket using the provided screws and drilling them into the wall anchors.
After installing the first floating shelf bracket, hold the second bracket up to wall where you want to install it. Make sure the bracket is level with the first bracket, then mark the holes with a pencil and repeat the same steps used above for installing the first bracket.
4. Drill bracket holes in DIY floating shelf
Place your floating shelf on top of the wall brackets exactly how you want it to be once installed. Mark with a pencil the center point over the bracket. Then, mark the center point of this location on the shelf edge where the holes will be drilled.
You want to drill your bracket holes about 6″ – 6 1/4″ deep to properly fit the brackets. Drill the bracket hole with the 13/16″ drill bit and use a tape measure to enure it’s at least 6 inches deep.
Update: Originally, I used a 7/8″ drill bit which works, but after making these again, I used a 13/16″ drill bit instead which is just 1/16″ bigger than the 3/4″ bracket rod.
5. Install easy DIY floating shelf on wall
Carefully slide the floating shelf onto the wall brackets. And that’s it! Now it’s time to decorate it and enjoy!
I love how our floating shelf looks over the couch in our living room! It’s so fun to decorate with the changing seasons!
I couldn’t decide if I preferred decorating the floating shelf with pink azaleas or white hydrangeas! Which do you like better?!
Hope this easy DIY floating shelf with brackets tutorial has been helpful! Follow along on my latest projects and sneak peaks on Instagram and Pinterest!
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Hi Angela – I have been using 2x4s for floating shelves. I checked Lowes and they did not have any brackets similar to yours. Where can I buy these brackets? Sure will save lots of time with yours.
they are from Amazon! Here is the link to the ones I used: https://amzn.to/2KMIcnQ
Another comment on your floating shelves. I will use a Forstner bit with an extension as opposed to spade bits.
I think your floating shelf is beautiful! It would be a good idea to make the reader aware that the brackets you used are wider than a standard 2×8 and therefore they stick out above and below the shelf. We learned this the hard way after making the shelf and drilling holes in our wall. We will be starting over since our goal was to have a true floating shelf – one that does not show the brackets. There are other very similar but thinner brackets on Amazon that will do the trick.
Thanks Sara! That’s a good point and I will add that to the post! The brackets do show a little but it’s hard to tell unless you get up close. I wanted to use a thinner bracket, but I couldn’t find any that were thin enough and could support the length of my shelf and weight of items for it without adding more than 2 brackets. That’s why I ended up choosing these brackets!
What type of wood did you use for your shelves?
I used 2×8 pine from Home Depot, here is a link to it: https://rstyle.me/+uG8Gzu5h4MyKqbWlCO9QJQ
Hi Angela – I have made a few “floating shelves” using cedar, walnut, cherry and hickory. Being some what of a cheapskate, I used 2×4 pine studs for the mount and shelf holders. I like yours, tho. Really like your blog.
Great idea! Thank you!
Hi again – I should have said I use the FREE pine stickers I get at Lowes for the supports on the floating shelves. Lowes has a huge supply of the FREE stickers. I buy lumber from small local saw mills.
Hi Angela – I am in the process of buying the materials for this project and have a question. I was at Home Depot and the weight of the wood was heavy. Is there a specific wood type you used? I’m assuming there was no issues with the weight of the wood and items? I was a little concerned that it might not hold but it looks like you had no issues. Thanks!
I used the 2×8 pine from the framing lumber department which is heavier. I didn’t have any issues with the weight of the wood and items on it because the brackets I used could support up to 100lbs which was more than enough for what I had on it and the wood itself. If you do want to use a lighter wood, I would recommend using cedar wood because it is much more light weight. But, you may need to get it from a lumber yard if you want to buy 2×8 cedar wood since Home Depot and Lowes usually only carry 1×8 cedar.
Hi Heather – You might for local sawmills. Wood may be fresh cut or dried and will be much cheaper than the big box stores. The only lumber I buy from them is plywood.
A shelf that heavy should only ever have brackets bolted onto studs; wall anchors into drywall won’t be enough.
We made sure to use the heavy duty anchors that came with the shelf which had a max weight of 110 lbs. There are other heavy duty drywall anchors that can be purchased as well.
I have a question do you think it would hold for kitchen shelves? I love the way yours turned out!
Thank you! So I want to update what I said last week. We were going to use these for our kitchen floating shelves but our wood was really heavy (2″ thick white oak), I could barely lift it. We were unable to get the brackets into all studs because there was only 1 stud where we wanted to hang the shelves. Unfortunately, without getting both brackets into the studs, it just wasn’t enough support, even with using heavy duty toggle bolts for drywall. So, I would only recommend them for really heavy shelves, like the kitchen shelves, if you can get them into studs only, not drywall.