Floating Shelf Installation: More Space for More Stuff!

Until we finish our basement, I'm kind of running out of room on our main floor to display pretty things, which makes me sad. That means there's less opportunity for me to make fun DIY crafts, because I have nowhere to put them when I'm done. This is a real problem, people.

But I recently realized a solution... floating shelves! Since we can't fit any more standing shelves or other furniture pieces in any of our rooms, it's time to start utilizing the walls. I've had the idea for awhile but never bit the bullet because these kinds of shelves are so dang expensive. And yes, I know that we (i.e. my handy husband) could just make some if we really wanted to, but there's plenty of other projects on our/his plate right now and frankly I didn't want to wait six months for them (no offense, honey).

Additionally, I had extra incentive thanks to $50 in Lowe's gift cards from Christmas (thanks, Mom & Dad!). So, after much deliberation and multiple trips to Lowe's, I finally decided on four allen + roth shelves (two 18" and two 24") for our living room wall. Even with the gift card, I still ended up spending about $60.

Don't mind the lamp sitting on the floor in the corner; 

this was taken before I finished my side table makeover.

Our rooms are small but we have 10' ceilings, so there's plenty of real estate to utilize here without overwhelming the space. With the hubby's help, we decided on the placement where we wanted the shelves, then marked each one with ScotchBlue painter's tape. This made it much easier to stand back and envision them in place.

As much as I'd like to say that I'm completely capable of putting these shelves up myself... I'm not. So Luke pretty much took it from here and figured out all of the measuring so the shelves would line up perfect and level. That's one of his specialties, so I certainly wasn't going to stand in his way. 

But even with his precision skills, we still ran into a few glitches with these shelves. First of all, the brackets themselves weren't perfectly straight and level, so that had to be factored into the measuring and placement. The wall anchors included with the shelves also pretty much sucked, so we ended up using some we already had on hand. (Luckily, we also hit a few studs so didn't have to use as many anchors as planned.) Finally, once the brackets were screwed into place, it ended up pulling the extended "arms" in toward each other, so that they no longer lined up with the holes in the back of the shelves. Luke corrected this by slipping some tiny washers back behind some of the screws, depending on how much the arms needed to be adjusted. 

Needless to say, the "15 minute installation" it says on the manual (per shelf) is pretty much a joke, at least based on this experience. But finally all four shelves were in place! And I don't plan on getting a bigger TV or rearranging any time soon, now that we've put some substantial holes in this wall for these babies.

Now the hard part was over for Luke, but it was just beginning for me. How to decorate my new shelves?!  There's no shortage of ideas, thanks to Pinterest, but I needed to narrow them down and make wise decisions. One thing's for sure, it definitely calls for some crafty DIY projects, which I'll be sharing with you soon!

Have you ever installed any floating shelves on your walls?