16 Easy and Stylish DIY Floating Shelves & Wall Shelves

I love the look of open wall shelves and floating shelves. They are super good looking, functional and DIY friendly.

Cabinets are much more labor and material intensive. If you have a blank wall and a need for extra storage, wall shelves can be just attractive yet much easier to build than cabinets!

16 easy tutorials on building beautiful floating shelves and wall shelves for your home! Check out all the gorgeous brackets, supports, finishes and design inspirations! - A Piece Of Rainbow

There are many ways to build wall shelves. Here is a collection of 16 inspiring DIY tutorials with detailed steps and many great variations on choosing brackets, supports, materials and finishes!

We will start with floating shelves first. These types of wall shelves are very popular because there is no visible hanging hardware and the shelves really look like they are floating. ( Some of the helpful resources are affiliate links. Full disclosure here. )

1. Floating Shelves with hidden inner frames

*Some resources in article are affiliate links. Full disclosure here.

bathroom floating shelves and wall shelves

One of the ways to support floating shelves is to use hidden inner frames. Sources:  Shades of Blue Interiors | Young House Love |

First build hidden inner frames with 1x2s, and screw the frame to the wall studs. A magnetic stud finder is a great tool to help you find studs.

Attach the top, bottom and side panels of the shelves to the frames with wood screws. When everything is put together, each shelf would look like one chunky piece of solid wood.

16 easy tutorials on building beautiful floating shelves and wall shelves for your home! Check out all the gorgeous brackets, supports, finishes and design inspirations! - A Piece Of Rainbow

Shanty 2 Chic | Desert Domicile

Paint the shelves white for a refreshing look, or stain them a darker color for a more traditional feel.

Related Article: Seven recipes to make your own natural wood stains: low cost and earth friendly!

7 ways to make wood stain from natural household materials! These quick and easy wood stains are super effective, long lasting, low cost, and non-toxic!

Group 2. Use Crates to build floating wall shelving

16 easy tutorials on building beautiful floating shelves and wall shelves for your home! Check out all the gorgeous brackets, supports, finishes and design inspirations! - A Piece Of Rainbow

Crate make great floating shelves. Sources: Natural Interiors by Ali Hanan| Soul Style

You can either screw them directly into the wall, or use D Rings hangers like these or keyhole hangers to hang them. Always remember to check weight limits!

Group 3. French Cleat Floating shelves

A French Cleat is a linear bracket capable of supporting lots of weight.

16 easy tutorials on building beautiful floating shelves and wall shelves for your home! Check out all the gorgeous brackets, supports, finishes and design inspirations! - A Piece Of Rainbow

You can purchase metal French Cleat like these, or make one with wood like shown below.  Sources: Lumberjocks | Domestic Doozie

We all know how heavy pallets are. A French cleat is a great solution for hanging a pallet shelf!

The next group of wall shelves are bracket shelves and hanging shelves.

Related Article: All About Pallets! Lots of tips on where to find and how to work with pallets.

20 most amazing raised bed gardens, from simple wood raised beds to many creative variations. Great tutorials and inspirations! - A Piece Of Rainbow

Next group of wall shelves are supported by brackets-

Group 4. Floating shelf with Angle Brackets

The most common shelving brackets are corner brace right angle brackets which are simple to work with, slim and easy to hide.

16 easy tutorials on building beautiful floating shelves and wall shelves for your home! Check out all the gorgeous brackets, supports, finishes and design inspirations! - A Piece Of Rainbow

Sources: Our Vintage Home Love | Mommy Suite

Attach the angle brackets on either top or bottom of the shelves.

Screw the brackets into the wall studs or if you cannot find the studs, use dry wall anchors that can hold up to 75lbs per anchor.

Place the shelves onto the brackets and secure with wood screws.

A beautiful selection of objects will hide the brackets and add much interest to the wall.

Group 5. Ikea Shelf Brackets

16 easy tutorials on building beautiful floating shelves and wall shelves for your home! Check out all the gorgeous brackets, supports, finishes and design inspirations! - A Piece Of Rainbow

Ikea has so many ingenious designs. Their shelving brackets are no exceptions. Image sources: House Tweaking | Ikea

The brackets in the two photo above are Ikea Ekby Bjarnum Brackets, which come in 7″ or 11″ wide, and Ikea Ekby Valter Brackets which also come in two sizes.

Group 6. Make your own wooden floating shelf corbels

A corbel is a type of bracket and often an architectural element. It can be as simple as a triangular piece of wood, or as grand as carved marble.

16 easy tutorials on building beautiful floating shelves and wall shelves for your home! Check out all the gorgeous brackets, supports, finishes and design inspirations! - A Piece Of Rainbow

These two floating shelves incorporate corbel as supports. The reclaimed wood shelf is finished with a coat of non-toxic butcher block oil that really brings out the beauty of the wood grain.

Sources: A Piece of Rainbow | Keeping it Cozy

Group 7. DIY Wall shelves with Pipes and Ropes

16 easy tutorials on building beautiful floating shelves and wall shelves for your home! Check out all the gorgeous brackets, supports, finishes and design inspirations! - A Piece Of Rainbow

If you love industrial style, galvanized pipe like these with floor flanges and pipe caps make gorgeous supports for these stylish shelves.

16 easy tutorials on building beautiful floating shelves and wall shelves for your home! Check out all the gorgeous brackets, supports, finishes and design inspirations! - A Piece Of Rainbow

Space-saving and collapsible, this hanging rope shelf has a charming boho vibe and is totally beginner friendly!

Before we end today, there are more eye-candies for you to check out- 25 stunning kitchens and cabinet paint colors.

25-beautiful-paint-colors-for-kitchen-cabinets-apieceofrainbowblog (17)

Love Creative DIYs?

Have a great weekend! =)

26 Comments

  1. Floating shelves are great! This is such a nice collection that seems easy and fun to build!

  2. Floating shelves are an elegant way of displaying collectibles, photos, travel mementos, or other decorations. I always wanted to build my own floating shelves and was looking for helpful ideas. I got some great ideas from your article. Thanks for sharing.

  3. Love the idea of floating shelves!
    We built an airplane floating shelf for our kid’s room, and he was totally stunned when he saw it! It’s red and silver, and it looks gorgeous along with the yellow wall. ?

  4. Love the idea of floating shelves!
    We built an airplane floating shelf for our kid’s room, and he was totally stunned when he saw it! It’s red and silver, and it looks gorgeous along with the yellow wall. 🙂

  5. Lovely and natural idea… You are so creative with always simplcity and natural ideas…
    Thanks Ananda and have a verry nic day. with all you love and love you..

  6. I am in LOVE. I have been trying to figure out new ways to breathe life back into our space after clearing out a ton of walls in our house. I wanted something more than just pictures hung on the walls and I think some floating shelves could be the answer.

  7. Thanks for sharing! I’m running out of room for all my stuff so I’m going to start putting shelves where I have space. Shelves are kinda expensive sometimes… I’m gonna try to DIY them!

    xoxo, Sam | thehauntedhousewife.com

  8. These are so pretty! I love the look of floating shelves. So elegant and chic, but the wood gives them that traditional farmhouse feel. Love:)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Send this to a friend