DIY Floating Shelves


DIY Floating shelves laundry room makeover. Learn how to build floating shelves for your home. This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #PurexCrystalFresh #CollectiveBias

Do you have a honey-do list? I do and it’s about time I check this laundry room shelving off my list!

We moved into our new house about three years ago. I’ve since built a patio, remodeled the bathroom, painted the exterior, updated the dark and dreary kitchen, and a whole mess of other projects.

One lingering project on my honey-do list has been a shelf above the washer and dryer.

Today I’m going to freshen up our laundry room with a couple of “floating shelves” and taking you along for the journey!

Freshen up your laundry room with this EASY DIY floating shelf project! Learn how to build floating shelves for your laundry room!

It’s time to freshen things up and get this storage shelf built. 

This is a quick and easy project to get your laundry room makeover off on the right foot!

I’m actually building two shelves, and I’ll show you how you can build shelves in your home.

Of course, your rooms are a different size than mine, so you’ll need to do your own measuring. I know you can handle that!

I’ll be fitting one shelf the entire way across our laundry area and one above that will span just less than halfway across.

I like the staggered look it’ll give the laundry room.

DIY Floating Shelves

Shelves without brackets that float there on the wall are really not too hard to build. It’s definitely a DIY project for even the novice do-it-yourselfer. You can build DIY floating shelves for your home this weekend!

Think of it this way, you’re basically building a box with one open side and an easy frame for the box to slip onto. That’s all there is to it!

Materials:

Instructions:

Since your laundry room is a different size than ours, I’m not going to bother with the measurements for my shelves as yours will likely be different.

I mean, one of my DIY floating shelves is 64¾” long and the other is 27¾” long.

What are the odds you want your shelves to be those exact measurements? Not likely. So here is an example of what you would need for a 30 inch floating shelf.

Example cuts for 30″ shelf:

8″ wide board (will be approximately 7¼” wide from the lumber yard)

  • Two 28½” long pieces

4″ wide board (will be approximately 3½” wide from the lumber yard)

  • Two 7¼” long pieces
  • One 30″ long piece

For the frame:

2″ furring board (will be approximately 1½” square from the lumber yard)

  • One 28¼” long piece
  • Four 5½” long pieces

Building A DIY Floating Shelf

For the shelf, we’re using 1×4 and 1×8 lumber.

We’re making a box to fit over a frame that will be attached directly to the wall. Continue reading to see how easy this goes together.

Floating Shelf Materials

The first thing you need to do is attach the small 4″ wide boards to the ends of the top and bottom shelf boards using wood glue and finish nails.

DIY Floating Shelf with 8 inch boards

Next, attach the long 4″ wide board to the front with wood glue and finish nails, to make a box with an open backside.

Assembling a floating shelf

Fill the nail holes with stainable wood putty.

Filling Nail Holes with Wood PuttySand and Stain!

Now that you have the box built, you can sand the entire piece with a sheet of 220 grit sandpaper.

Using an orbital sander makes this go quite quickly. Wipe the dust away and apply a nice stain finish.

Applying a finish stain to wooden floating shelf

Now that the shelf is built and the stain is drying, let’s build and install the frame!

Floating Shelf Frame

While our stain is drying, we can build the internal frame using the furring strips.

Attach the short furring pieces perpendicular to the longest piece at even intervals.

Use two 3½ inch wood screws to attach each piece. Notice that I started the screws to make it go together a bit easier.

Floating Shelf Frame Assembly

Use two screws in each, this is the support structure for your shelf!

DIY Floating Shelf Frame

Installing Shelf Frame

BEFORE! Yes, our laundry room is quite tiny and yes for three years our walls have been this bare!

Laundry Room Before - Bare Walls, No Shelving

Locate wall studs behind the drywall.

You can do so by using a stud finder or knocking on the wall and listening closely for the solid sound (stud) vs the hollow sound – locate the studs or use heavy-duty toggle lock style wall anchors to attach the floating shelf.

Lightly mark the studs with a pencil.

Use a level to draw a line straight across the wall with a pencil, about ¾” below where you want the top of your shelf to be.

Attach the shelf frame to the wall using 3½ inch long screws on the level line. Use two screws in each stud.

As you recall, I’m installing two shelves!

Installing Floating Shelves in Laundry Room

Floating Shelf Installation

Slide the shelf box over the frame. Attach the box to the frame using a couple of finish nails downward and into the back edge of the frame.

Installing DIY floating shelves

Obviously, there are a lot of variables when building a custom shelf for your home.

Figure it out in your mind, write it down, do the math, measure twice cut once. You’ll have beautiful shelves in no time!

PS: Aside from the dry time of the putty and stain, this project only took about an hour to complete.

DIY Floating Shelf Finishing Touches

Now it’s time to fill it up and add decorations! As I mentioned, I found these Purex Crystals Fresh Mountain Breeze in wash fragrance boosters which will freshen your wardrobe with the crisp air of Fresh Mountain Breeze to brighten your everyday.

I also picked up Purex Crystals Lavender Blossom, and Purex Crystals Aromatherapy Well Being which will infuse and refresh your laundry with soothing notes of aromatic citrus and florals blended with essential oils to put a little bliss in your day.

Laundry room DIY floating shelf.

As you all know, the fun doesn’t stop until the decorating is done.

I mean, this is the laundry room! It’s been a bare wall for THREE YEARS! So we need fun signage don’t you think?

There are a million and one funny things you can put on your laundry room walls.

I know you’ve seen all of the lost sock sayings and signs — so we’re going to have a little fun and hang a vinyl sign ourselves.

Laundry room sign: Laundry, Sorting Life Out One Load At A Time

See, it’s not too hard to freshen up your laundry room. Especially with new shelving and Purex® Crystals, which provide a great scent that gives you 12 weeks of freshness.

Purex Crystals provide a great scent at a great price! My favorite it the Purex® Crystals Fresh Mountain Breeze — all the way!

DIY Floating Shelves for Laundry Room

So next time you’re grocery shopping at Hannaford, or wherever you shop – grab a couple bottles of Purex® Crystals to help freshen up your life!

You might also like:

Where will you build your DIY floating shelves?

DIY Floating Shelves

How to build a floating shelf. Add another to make a set of floating shelves!
Servings 1 shelf
Prep Time 10 mins
Cook Time 50 mins
Total Time 1 hr

Equipment

  • Nail gun or hammer
  • Saw

Ingredients

Instructions

  • Cut wood to lengths needed - see blog post for wood cutting instructions to fit your area.
  • Create a box with 1x4's, leaving one of the long sides of the box open for mounting on the wall. Fill nail holes, sand, and stain the box.
    Applying a finish stain to wooden floating shelf
  • Create cleats with 2x2's, securing short pieces of 2x2s to a long piece using two 3.5" screws for each piece
    DIY Floating Shelf Frame
  • Attach the cleat to the wall studs using 3.5" screws.
    Installing Floating Shelves in Laundry Room
  • Slide the box over the cleats and secure from the top with screws into the back rail piece of the cleat.
    Installing DIY floating shelves

Notes

These floating shelves are quite self explanatory once you get into building them. Take your time, follow the blog post, and you'll have a beautiful DIY floating shelf in no time!
Author: Scrappy Geek
Cost: $15

 

Join the Conversation

  1. Hi Sally, Yes I made the frame about 1/4 to 1/2 inch smaller than the shelf in order for it to slip right over easily. I also “dry fit” the frame inside the shelf box before attaching it to the wall to make sure it would fit nicely. It really is quite simple and I’m sure your floating shelves will turn out great! I hope this helps, good luck with your project!

  2. Did you make your frame a bit smaller than the shelf? To accommodate sliding over it and to have the shelf flush with the wall on the ends. I am not great at explaining this and sometimes I tend to overthink things. I love these and thank you for your great post.

  3. That’s exciting! Good luck with your move, Carrie! We bought an older home, mostly because of the mountain views. So it seems like we’re updating something each year — definitely worth it to live in such a quite and relaxing area though! 🙂

  4. I just checked out all of the DIY home posts you shared, and they got me so excited because in just TWO DAYS we are moving into a new home about 300 miles from our current house. Thanks for providing some fun reno inspiration! #client

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